The ups and downs of living on a river

It has rained a lot lately as it usually does this time of the year in the Pacific Northwest. Our raingauge has collected 7.3" in 6 days and more rain is predicted through the week with possible let up by the weekend.
The USGeological Survey Water data at Heisson bridge on the East Fork of the Lewis river in Clark County, Washington recorded: 4,020 CFS and a gage height of 16.59 at 1500 yesterday. The photos below show the difference a day makes after continous rain for 24 hrs.


I stayed up this night watching the river rise, hoping that the rain would let up. The sound of the powerful river was like the roar of the large rapids that I remember while rafting the Colorado. Fortunately, the rain subsided by 20:00 and by 24:00 the river crested at 20 feet gage height, and 10,700 cfs. WHEW! Fortunately I recovered my beaver camera trap just in time.
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River Poetry

My wife Kimberley Pittman-Schulz is a Poet and several of her poems have appeared in magazines and periodicals including: Avocet, Cairn, the Oregonian, Rosebud, The Merton Seasonal, and The Sun. I share with you here a poem she wrote for me and is included in her recently reworked manuscript for her book of poems entitled :
MOSSLIGHT.





River’s Wind

For Terry

Late light on the river
shows us where the beaver lifts
his dark face
from darker water,
willow leaves in his lips, willow limbs
stripped and bare as bones
at our feet.

At the end of the day,
we feel the ending.
Two kingfishers rattle
in the firs and fall silent;
a single, yellow alder leaf
spins downstream,
sinking into dusk.

I look into your eyes
and see they are not pebbles.
The river moves in them—
both fixed and flowing, they are alive
in this moment, two blue flowers
caught in the river’s wind.

The beaver drifts
toward us, just forehead and wet eyes
glinting on the surface, so that
in the dimness he could be
nothing more than water
folding in on itself.

A coolness lifts and
the sky bruises purple,
a dozen bats suddenly above us,
licking into the night. All we want
is here, now. I lean into your left arm,
each of us holding on
as long as we can.