Samara

Dedication: To the artist, who inspired the words.

Seeking the moist soil of the river bottom, standing as a solitary guard is Samara.

Spring is barely upon her and winter, in last gasp, reasserts his steely grip.

She has lived this struggle for centuries and like a well-worn script she knows the inevitable outcome – goodness will prevail and winter must await the sequel.

The mountain snowmelt is in full force and the river is energized with fresh, life sustaining nourishment.

As he rushes by, Samara can only imagine his freedom – the experiences he has had, the places he has yet to visit.

They are old friends who have been together through every season, every storm, every midsummer’s night. He has nourished her and she has kept him on course, holding back the banks that would otherwise give way like powder in the wind.

Tonight, the paschal moon, that pink nocturnal sphere, is setting the sky afire. Samara feels the first buds of the wild ground phlox and she can feel the energy and fertility of spring swelling in her sapwood.

Like the exaggerated tides, all the waters are agitated – the river, no exception. He embraces spring, the exhilaration, ferociously mining nutrients beyond his reach most of the year. Under what he knows as the Fish Moon, he is a fierce warrior, taking no prisoners, a force no mere mortal can tame.

Each year, on this night and this night alone, Samara unleashes all of her charms to soothe the river. A master seductress and although confined in her ashen body, she starts by letting down her hair, emulating the Maenad she has seen running frantically through the forest with pine cone tipped scepters. With an enigmatic smile, she picks up her four-stringed mesmerizer and riffs off a haunting and beautiful melody, her stem-like fingers dancing across the board. Over the years, she had carefully collected hair from passing chevaliers’ steeds, sometimes stretching her branches a bit to improve the odds. A fallen branch, the perfect stick, then hair to frog.

The evergreens, those transient bit players, stand in awe. Samara has seen them come and go. Always aloof, she has learned to befriend them but not get too close, as in contrast to her nature, they grow fast and die young.

In any event, none of this is for them. Her only desire is to quell the river, her ancient companion, and to tempt his waters to stay awhile – all this to effect. He wonders how she stays so beautiful year after year. He admires her strength and steadfastness, her resilience. He stops for a moment to lovingly lick her toes. He captures a piece of root bark as a memento, and then inevitably moves on.

It is a dance each knows well, love unrequited, unfulfilled, yet always remaining close and each preserving her and his nature. As frenzied spring gives way to sultry summer, they fall into a comfortable, all too familiar, symbiosis. She soaking in the sun and stretching her canopy offering him much appreciated shade over his docile self – he submissive, her never.

Come autumn, the approaching winds of winter will carry her carefully nurtured winged seed to the far reaches of the northeast forests, Samara finally attaining the freedom for which she longs.