Bones on Billy's Point

Life interrupted on the Wye River.

The brackish water
of the Wye River
laps at the base of the bank
20 feet below.

It's the Eastern edge
of Billy's Point,
jutting out into the river
like the broad chin
of an old man, 
protecting the pines 
and oaks and grassy meadows
and corn fields behind it.

Despite July,
the air's cool,
light cloud cover
muting the high sun,
a soft breeze 
rising up the face 
of the cliff,
keeping the bugs down,
low humidity keeping
the sticky at bay.

The path through the pines
is overgrown but still calls
us into the corn field,
stalks more than head high,
stretching acre after acre
in every direction.

We step ten rows in
just to listen to the buzz
of invisible bugs,
of birds flitting above,
of the summer wind.

Something much bigger than us
and rows away bolts to safer ground,
freezing us in our tracks 
and sending our imaginations racing.

Crows and jays alert the world:
interlopers disturbing 
our peace and quiet 
and solitude and safety!

At the far edge of the field
the path opens back along the cliff,
an osprey works the water below,
hitting the surface like a torpedo,
plucking something out for lunch.

You wonder who's life
was instantly interrupted,
ripped from water to sky
by some sharp force from above
that wisks it away to its end.

Then you notice 
lying at your feet
the delicate bones 
of something small,
a muscrat or immature beaver,
likely plucked from the river
by that osprey long ago,
its bones discarded 
and left to weather, 
bleached white jaw bones
with long orange front teeth
and rows of tiny molars 
for grinding shells 
and other softer parts of crustations.

Another life previously interupted, naturally, 
out on the Wye River.