Many Waters in the Fall

When my mother was younger she would skip school and drive north toward Tawas Point turning off at Wilbur Road toward Lumberman’s Monument with friends to enjoy the woods. Just down the bank of the Au Sable River from there was a place called Iargo Springs where she and her friends sometimes also spent time.


This last place has been very special to me since the first time I remember my mother taking me there as a child. There is an observation deck overlooking the Au Sable as it placidly, gently kinks through green marshes hemmed in by stands of now-shimmering orange and gold trees.

The best part of the Springs, though, is gotten by a descent of something like 300 stairs to a place where moss covers everything sitting still too long with mayapples and plantain poking through getting ready for next spring.

Crisscrossing this way and that under board walks and small decks are whispering ribbons of ice cold, crystal clear water tripping over fallen trees and stones to meet the river.

I was glad Arik, Tisch and Roderick and I could make this trip to the Springs, Tisch, especially, since she seems in need lately of a break from a world that sometimes pinches a personality that deserves more space.

As we wandered I was reminded there is no way to view from this place anything to do with modern conveniences. Iargo is entirely given over at this time of year to the spicy scent of fallen leaves mingled with the musk of wet bark and mossy stones mingling into something deep and ancient; in my mind this is the smell and feel of continuity where time is not a threat, but more of a thread that everything hangs on waiting for the next thing to begin.