The River and its Way

Essay by Jason Kirkey

When I was very young my family lived on a ridge that divides two watersheds. On the eastern side of the ridge there were several acres of forest and marsh. The rain that fell on this side would flow, by way of streams and aquifers, into the North Atlantic. On the western side was an artificial reservoir filled by the Ipswich River, which flowed just further west and north. The rain that fell on the western side of the ridge collected into the river. This is the house, the oikos—the Greek word from which our word “ecology” is derived—that I was born into.

I arrived at the canoe landing one July day with a friend, Matt, who I often hike and canoe with. We lowered the canoe from his car then walked it down the steep decline toward the river. Light shone off the water. The humidity in the air clung to my skin like pine sap. All afternoon the clouds parted and coalesced into sunshine and rain. The rain fell splashing into the water to become part of the river. Other drops fell on leaf, on …