The Deerfield in Winter

I went down to the Deerfield the other day, one of the coldest of the season. The hemlocks were frosted, drooping over the river, fishing the mist. Amidst the relative quiet of winter it is startling, always, to walk beside a river. It never ceases, year round, to rush and roar. I rather felt like knitting my eyebrows and tsking it, asking it if it had any concern at all for the turtles and muskrats deep in its banks and beds. But its thrilling rush won’t be stopped, and its inhabitants are happy for the oxygen.

In the pinkish cold the water takes on a green, a jade, eery and evocative. Its boulders throw up sprays of froth, reminding me of the prints of Mount Fuji. The river seemed to hold fury of a sort, but alongside its banks the rocks were wearing petticoats.

They had ice tiers, three layers each, all exactly level, reflecting a gray-blue sky. Their bodies seemed languid, a herd of half-dressed sea lions sprawled in their preparation. Jewels were scattered about, pebbles frosted with spray. The Deerfield is dammed, and the levels rise systematically, allowing perfectly measured rings of ice to form along its banks. In one area full sheets of layered glass had formed, three or so inches between each layer, enough for a careful hand. I wonder if the operator knew such delicate, exacting work had occurred. It was inadvertent Andy Goldsworthy.

I knelt to get my eyes level, and with my hands squeezed in my pockets I could feel the bones of hips bend. I wanted to crawl in. As I looked up and down the bank, I notice my surroundings have greened, and seem relatively lush. A distinctly different light, here – not the stark pallet of needled ground and gray-brown bark, but something full and round. And here there is not the destruction, or not as much, from the hurricane. No trees upturned, gathering rubbish and debris. And then I realized, mountain laurel!

Somewhere between bonsai and wild grape, or like hophornbeam wrung, thinned, and twisted. It seems hearty, but also sculpted and delicate. Its flowers are a cluster of cup-crowns, and its leaves waxy and evergreen. In my mind it’s our most notable member of ericaceae, the broad-leaf evergreens. They are plentiful out west, salal and Oregon grapes and kinnickinnick carpeting the coniferous floor – there is even the great twisting tree, the madrone, who belongs to ericaceae. But here it’s the mountain laurel, and until I saw its effect along the bank I hadn’t appreciated its resilience.

The flood waters of hurricane Irene ripped through roads and toppled enormous sycamores, tore out street lamps and miles of bank. And surely there were other factors that lessened its effect along this stretch of bank, but one had to be the laurels. Their leaves still clung tenaciously, undisturbed, though they had gathered masses of sticks and leaves and sand, still pointing downstream as if in mid-flow. I crawled up under one and felt I was in some eagle’s aerie. They must have lessened the water’s velocity immensely, and their slim trunks and roots must have held fast. This is quite unlike areas populated by the invasive Japanese knotweed – those banks are ripped and eroded.

So I’m bolstered by laurels, as is a lucky stretch of the Deerfield. In winter they give warmth, cover, contrast, and in the spring they’ll be awash with pink and white. While the river roars.