The late afternoon brought a slow river of taut cellophane, it's flat sheets disturbed only by the random surfacing bubble. We cut through it easily, slow and quiet. The river's soundlessness only amplified the slosh of paddle-blades, cutting at the flesh of the Penobscot. The water dripping, littered a trail of cylindrical ripples that echoed through the corridors.
This stretch between Big Island and Chesuncook was the most flat, dead water we had yet encountered; which lent to a mood of childish boredom. Every turn had something new, every stump erect in the distant water was a staring moose, every downed tree and protruding river stone an obstical worthy of a skate park.
As we approached (pronounced in a low baritone native accent): "Chesuncook".... the winds seem to hold their breath.
Along the Penobscot the average bobber and beer fisherman is not aloud. It is fly against fish on the Upper West Branch. So our only recourse was to drink and watch the fine art the angler employs in deceiving trout with a deliciously swooping artificial fly....from shore.
Theres something about the white, the crumple of flesh in the hip, where water decides to fold itself, attack whatever object its white fists engage. Something ultimately feminine that draws men towards it. Some seduction only understood when you touch it, walk through it or are finally engulfed by its power. Something that makes you feel triumphant when you emerge from its persuasion.
wha?
The boredom, the slowness of time the river affords creaks in the trees, foams in eddys, crackles and taps it's wings against the surface of the water and removes all concerns one might have about their "aliveness". Fluvial you make your way, as if through the arteries of some great spiritual body, crooked, stuttering, quiet and somewhat bored, in the slowness of things you make it, thoughtfully.
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