Runoff. (Erosion, part 4)

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Travel Day.

The river, swollen by several feet in width in its shallow bed this morning, is suddenly the color of bad coffee, treated with too much cream. For the moment, that bracing clarity so natural during days of dry and sun is cloaked beneath the runoff from yesterday's rain.

The rain falls, the mountains and stream banks surrender their offerings to the river, giving away pieces of themselves as they do. In the muddy, swollen river, the immoveable, distant mountains run past my very feet; liquid, and carried off to the sea.

It strikes me: this is how Salmon run thousands of miles to spawn in the same rivers in which they were born. The rivers carry with them the pieces - the "scent" - of their homeland watershed, all the way to the ocean, whereby they can lead the fish back, year after year.