You'd

hardly know this was a boat if you saw it only from the

inside today.

Bird books

lie open to black-crowned night herons. Richard Strauss's

"Don Juan" is on Public Radio International,

not the weather channel. My "Book of Major American

Poets" is bookmarked at Edwin Arlington Robinson,

but he's gloomy: "And Richard Cory, one calm summer

night, Went home and put a bullet through his head."

Indeed,

many American poets are gloomy. Emily with her obsession

with death. Poe with his. Robert Frost is reflective, my

favorite to read aloud, but I return to Longfellow with

his sweeping sagas and evocative portraits of nature:

"The thrush that carols at the dawn of day From the

green steeples of the piny wood...."

Dave is

reading books on navigation instead of navigating, and I

am writing about boat-travel instead of traveling. A

series of thunderstorms chased us off the river

yesterday. Didn't find a cove to our liking -

everything here along the Tennessee is being built out in

lavish estates, each with double boat house and rocketing

water toys - until we ducked in behind an island and

found a sheltered creek, deep enough and wide enough to

let our little trawler swing to anchor.

Stayed

through the weekend, intentionally avoiding the motorboat

wakes that toss dishes out of their shelves. After

riverbanks loaded with houses, this tree-fringed bay is

strikingly rural. About half of it is a steep-sloping

pasture where we noticed the bouncing approach of a small

trailer loaded with dog crates.

Three happy

speckled hounds are soon running and snuffing the Sunday

air. An occasional lowing. A dozen tan cattle graze

behind the trees. In the late afternoon they wade into

the river to cool their bellies. Here in our

boat-turned-studio, the only reminders that we're on

water is the gentle rocking of wind-blown wavelets and

the changing scene, as the stern swings first toward one

bank, then the other.

A flock of

wood duck hens and chicks has possession of a log back

near the creek's narrow entrance. Earlier I watched a

night heron getting a drink from the same log. The

swallows drink on the wing, dipping to the surface then

wheeling for another pass. Three boys are alternately

fishing and sunning themselves like turtles on a dock at

the eastern tip of the peninsula that forms this bay.

Finally one

can contain his curiosity no longer - after all,

we've been moored in his cove for nearly 48 hours -

and climbs into a runabout, fires it up, guns it into a

long spray-filled loop, then lets it slow, nose dropping,

as he approaches. I don't know why we feel threatened

when another boater comes toward us on the water. We've

read too many horror stories of modern-day pirates and

drug-runners in the Caribbean, I guess. In any case, the

figure in the boat looks like a crazed murderer until he

nears us, starboard to starboard, and grins.

"Nice

boat," he calls across the water between us. "I

like it." He's just a lanky high school boy, his

backward baseball cap nodding in approval. I thank him,

he circles behind us, and passes even closer on my left.

"Yeah, I like it," and he adds to his smile a

thumbs-up before cruising back to his dock.

Last night

we heard a couple of loud slaps on the water, beaver no

doubt, although there's no signature of pointed stumps

and inch-wide shavings like those on Peachtree City

ponds. Now and then I sense I'm being watched. No

alligators in this river.

I put the

glasses on a wedge I hadn't noticed earlier on the

surface. It's a turtle looking over the green interloper

in his world. When he's seen enough, he slips below

without the slightest ripple to show where he had cleft

the water.

Sat out on

the stern for several hours yesterday, reading,

binoculars at hand, when a small brown and white

butterfly landed on my book. The book was "Under the

Tuscan Sun," Frances Mayes' bestseller about buying

and restoring an Italian villa, her descriptions of basic

country food mouthwatering. It amused me to think the

words gave off an essence a butterfly found attractive.

I was

nearly to the bottom of a page, but put off turning it

lest I startle him. I think he was a hackberry butterfly,

although he had more "eye-spots" than the

picture in our guide shows. He flattened his wings, then

closed them over his furry back, then spread them again,

all the while touching everything within reach with his

unfurled proboscis.

I watched,

fascinated, as he explored the page, then started

slightly upon reaching my index finger. When nothing

happened, he was emboldened to climb aboard, allowing me

to finish the chapter. I called to Dave to come see. The

little insect seemed perfectly content to ride my finger,

and when I wanted to come in, required considerable

persuasion to remain outside on a coil of rope.

We saw him

over the next hour or more, clinging to the screen and

watching us as we cooked spaghetti and shredded salad.

Later when we stepped outside to check on some unfamiliar

birdsong, the butterfly was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps

he'd flown across the water to dine where daisies spangle

the meadow. Perhaps.

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