Swan Cove Dreams

Ten years have passed since I last hunted the meadows and hills around Swan Cove. My father and his father too are memories of this place. For almost twenty years I walked the beaches between the tides, climbed the steep slopes to the timberline, and wandered through the mazes of the meadows at the head of the bay. Some days were like mirrored joy. At other times came storms and three day blows. Long lines of trees lay fallen along the beach and high water, in the blackness of night, lapped at the cabin door. Then other days were filled with fog and rain in constant streams. At night in sleep, the dreams played like movies inside my head. And the mice would awaken me, as they raced about the cabin, rattling the pots and pans. Outside, in the moss and spruce forest, the solitude played tricks on the mind: tinkling sounds along the streams, areas of the woods silent as death, and tracks in the snow of some lost soul. But after a few weeks, in step with the natural cycles, my movements became more instinctual and more sure. Life was simplified and whole. Around me, a vast unknown country waited to be found. There, the trails of deer and bear were now the roads that lead into the interior:up the timbered slopes to the shelves above, around the steep ravines where dead fall choked the light, and far into the muskeg land. From first light to last light, the adventures at Swan Cove ebbed and flowed with the seasons. At Swan Cove I dreamed of things that lived between the tides.