Old Man Sycamore stands with his toes in the clear/greenish water of Barton Creek. Beat up by the springtime floods, little of his crown remaining, he pushes up new sprouts from the base of his trunk, an eternal optimist — what are his alternatives, after all? A bright red Cardinal whispers words of encouragement in his ears and then flies off.
Dogs splash in the water. Big dogs. Little dogs. Timid dogs. Happy dogs. Miss Izzy watches them and wags her tail. And she watches the kids playing in the water fall upstream. She would gladly go home with them if she could, but she can’t, so she sits beside me in a little spot of shade that won’t be here for long, beside a slab of limestone with green moss growing on the wet edges that glisten in the noon day sun.
Before long, our shade is no more, and we take refuge on the far bank, on smooth limestone gravel under the canopy of an American Elm. Or rather I sit in the shade, Miss Izzy having chosen a comfortable spot in the sun where she can warm her bones that got chilled from her swim across the creek.
