Water

I've been prowling the end-of-winter riverbank for weeks, increasingly disheartened by the trash mixed in with the tangles of dead twigs and leaves. A brief snowfall covered it all up for a few days, but when the sun came out, and the snow melted, there it was, ugly as ever.

Last week's days of deluging rain swelled the river way beyond its banks. I thought the onrushing water would have a cleansing effect. I remembered Robert DeNiro's famous speech in Taxi Driver about the rain washing the filth away. But no. The flooded lowlands became marinas of brown water filled with bobbing plastic containers of all shapes and sizes. Whatever downstream trash washed seaward was replaced by even more from upstream.

The annual Charles River clean-up is on April 24th.

I think I'll sign up.