I am building a rock tower, the kind that makes you think of Texas or possibly Colorado. The varied trigonometries and subtle stench of the falls in the distance recede as the dragonflies guide me down a beckoning rivulet. Alone or in pairs, they skip from rock to rock like fairy godmothers, curating my materials with the spontaneous discernment that only insects possess. With each gossamer perch, they gently mock the harsh point of the index finger. I love them, their blue stickish torsos and jaunty meanderings. I did not love them before, but I do now.

Like the wings and the water, the fishes shimmying bodies are diaphanous, their viscera momentarily visible as they nibble the dead skin off my unshaved legs. By the time I lift the fistful of dripping rocks from the ankle-deep water beside the bank of the beck, they are gone, their escape routes as ephemeral as their innards. 

The clarion clangor of nearby children is moderated by the rush of the stream. “This might be the strongest current in the world.” “This is the strongest current in the world.” In keeping with little-documented childhood tradition, a girl of about seven chaperones the pack, the others lining the heaviest rocks they can carry across the stream’s small lip. The girl shepherds the stones with naive confidence, stealing a glance at me in my own concentrated stacking. I feel her gaze and turn my face toward her, squinting and imperceptibly generous in the light of the laggard sun. Recognizing the stony dedication of her future self undiminished, she flashes a grin equal parts wise and sheepish and returns to her station with renewed puissance.

The great egret checks in from time to time, appearing here and there, close at hand or far off in the distance. His roles shift seamlessly: faithful mascot, self-appointed watchbird, ordinary denizen. As he circles my realized sculpture, his slender form visible between its fraternal towers, he makes his position clear to me. I feel I’ve joined the ranks of an elite syndicate, a metaphysical cartel.

This lone bird is the yeoman of this territory. He shares the land unbegrudgingly. He is benevolent, but not without standards. He is critical and warm, and when with frisky peer and prudent flap he flies over the falling water, I rise to meet the ripples of his wake.

Charly Santagado graduated with highest honors from Rutgers University in May 2017 with a major in philosophy, and minors in creative writing, dance, and music. She is the founder and artistic director of ~mignolo dance~, a nonprofit contemporary dance company based in Metuchen, NJ. She is a freelance writer for Dance Informa and is passionate about dance criticism. She won multiple creative writing awards for her poetry at Rutgers and her work has been published in the Blue River Review, Interim Poetics, and Z Publishing House’s Emerging Writers Series and Emerging Poets Series.