Winter On the Miles River

There was something spectacular about a winter, long and hard, on the Miles River. Some days will never be the same. Greying skies, heavy hung with crystal burdens of the wind, and air. Twenty above, after sunset, zero. And the snow was the problem of every man of driving age with responsibility. His children were busy getting ready. And getting ready! The flurry of wool, and the long john-ed cotton. A long and hearty walk ahead, river bound, passing ponds along the way... A pair of skates, tied together, a knitted cap and a smile crossed the frosted fields, the puddled slush and slurry, hurried to gather like the feathered geese who gathered on the ice inside a frozen cove, a forgotten day one January. And the town of Saint Michaels: a sidewalk of salt and shovels digging out the shops... the smell of warmth, of oak, drifting thick from brick and mortar, soups and running noses tucked away inside the bars and churches, snowfall on stones in cemeteries of the Methodist, St. Luke's, and of the Catholic. There's birds at the feeder of a residential tucked nearby. A sigh, a whisper of air between the shops from the docks, chilly regards from river and bay. And a waterman, on his way to the mouth: leather skin, covered and coated in khaki and denim, with permanent painted on flannel. The oysters busheled up are icing over in a harbor of seafood trucks and white liars, old men who carry business no longer, young boys with no blood to offer. Forsaken a tradition, over a dollar. And so the middle aged...age. With bad knees, busted knuckles, and a thermos of lukewarm coffee, black and heavy. Cigarette smoke and rubber boots, bibs and denim jeans drying inside beside a stove of wood, the cord stacked long outside. And babies buried deep in coats and blankets, mothers careful in the parking lots of Grauls and Acme. Stews for dinner, Oyster based and beef, warm tomato with Saltines for crumbling and butter for spreading. Just the way of things. On Spencer Creek, someone took down a Christmas tree: a tomato cage on a dock. Distant echoes of a motor lapped the shoreline. Some men dreamed of spring time, when the cold would stop biting and the creeks would clear away the winter with the rain. Some days will never be the same.