STARDUST AND WATER FAERIES

 An essay from April of last year:

There’s a dog barking in the hollow and the crescent moon is low on the western horizon. The air is still, save for intermittent breaths of current redolent of earthy musk. The sweetness of an enchanting April evening scented with greening grass and sprouting buds, a spattering of stars; like a coy girl newly bloomed, freckle-faced and fresh from her bath, the fragrance of her shampooed hair enhancing her special aura and causing the young suitor on the porch swing beside her to suffer palpitations and loss of coherent speech.

I sit on the patio chair looking skyward and count five airliners coursing the jet-ways west and east. It’s a busy highway up there. The strobe lights in the sky mimic those of the various tall structures upon the hilltops. The scintillating stars, in my mind, are better suited to the romance of nighttime.

Earlier I had been at the river casting for trout; there came a blizzard of mayflies above the run, insect-faeries performing flights of fancy in the air. Their lightness of being was enhanced by the glow of dusk. In a random shifting of direction they would appear to be twinkling. The chaotic nature of the gathering belied the choreography of entomological romance. There’s a dance happening then, as graceful as any ballet: courting pairs describing intricate patterns in their rising and falling. An angler attempting to follow the paths of their flight with the tip of his or her fly rod would appear to be conducting a symphony orchestra. Yet, except for the sound of water, there is nothing to be heard. Thousands of fluttering wings, amid such frenzied activity; you’d think the stir would create at least a whisper. I’d be curious to find out if an enhanced microphone would prove otherwise and pick-up on any kind of background music.

So it is, I can only imagine, in the stardust. The dance of the spheres. The light-speed events, the whirly-gig formations of gaseous nebulae, explosions and implosions and eruptions. All that happening and it’s lucky that the most I hear this night are spring peepers and a mongrel‘s song. You forget about this in the daylight. Until, that is, you’re on the river fishing for trout amid throngs of insects and you’re oddly reminded of stardust. Later on you’re on the hilltop in the dark gazing at the sky and contemplating water faeries. The comparison isn’t too much of a stretch when you consider that, from a distant perspective, a swarm of mayflies in the twilight isn’t unlike the gauzy image of a far away galaxy.

Bugs and stars; an improbable link, I’ll admit. But in the dark of a sensuous spring evening, romanticism seems more logical than realism in the processing of stimuli from time spent on the river. It is a dreamy night, after all. I’m at liberty to mull over the romance of trout streams and starlight and evenings of long ago when starry-eyed in puppy love. Unabashed, I remember being enamored with faeries of literature and having romantic notions¾ seven or eight years old at the time¾ regarding exotic women, well, girls, and wondering how a guy went about planting a kiss on one of them. And later, as an adolescent James Dean wannabe, the tongue-tied awkwardness of being confronted with just such a possibility on an evening similar to this. When realism stared you straight in the face¾ she wasn’t Tinker Bell but an elfin beauty, nevertheless¾ and there came that heart stopping, Juicy Fruit gum tasting, soft first kiss that perpetuated the promise of romance on starry nights.


On the other hand, there are varieties of faeries you want to avoid. I’m thinking now of the water faerie Glaistig from Irish folklore, who would lure the hapless victim to dance; an insinuation of carnal knowledge her bait; the sight of her emergence from the river or swamp provoking lust; the tryst preceding a forced drowning. The provocative water nixie from the Brothers Grimm who lured the huntsman near the river for an embrace, only to drag him under the surface. There are marsh-like sections of the river, secluded runs that twist and curve through the slough, with a silt bottom where you can sink up to your knees in river mud when you feel the need to wade. There are carp and muskrats that will brush against your leg at times. But the trout are there too. And prolific hatches of mayflies with the ensuing eventide mating ceremonies that cause the trout to surface feed. The river appears smooth even though there is a sustained current flow; the glassiness mirrors the image of hills and sunset sky; eerie sounds permeate the stillness of the marsh. You stand in the reeds ready to cast to the nearest feeding trout, waiting for the telltale rise rings to form. A bright star has appeared over the ridgeline and the water faeries are rising and falling in an all-out orgy. Bats swoop and vie for the feast as the trout begin to gorge on the spent and fallen mayflies.

You’re aware of muskrat holes along the bank and cast a glance towards the rotted and moss-laden tree trunk laying half submerged at the bend, the gnarled deformations of its limbs reaching out of the water as if waiting to become animate on cue and grasp a careless fisherman. Burls on the trunk look disturbingly like the water spirit Jenny Greenteeth, a river-inhabiting hag with flowing hair and green teeth who drags her victims to a watery grave. You experience a brief chill along your backbone when you think of what may lurk in such lairs.

A rise ring appears. You false-cast to gauge the length of your line, cast again and watch the loop straighten to deliver the fly. When the violent strike occurs and the set is made and line begins to peel off the reel, you have to wonder what’s really at the end of the line. All around you is procreation and predation; things being eaten alive. If something were to brush against your leg about now, the scream you hear might not be from a swamp creature but the sound of your own voice.

One star becomes a dozen; below them, amid them, the faeries do their dance. The swirls on the water resemble planetary rings.