Flowing

I always miss the beginning of a stream coming to life…  Does it start with a trickle, slowly growing bigger and faster?  Does it come in a wave, like a tsunami down the canyon?   Or seep up from below, where the flow never stopped?   I keep on checking, sure that the rainfall is finally enough to make my stream come to life—but there is nothing. Then one morning, I wake to find a madly rushing flood where there was a desolate stream bed hours before.   

 My stream shoved over a massive, dead cottonwood tree in the night.  It scoured the banks, flattening all plant life.  It’s a muddy, swirling mess, unfit for fish or fowl right now.  But a mallard flies overhead, quacking ecstatically.   The water has returned—and life will quickly follow.