ch. 6, v.19-44 (journey to cape)

Perambulation the Third

And upon the morning of the second day
We ventured from this cape of glacial deposit
Further upon a tenuous scapulary of sediment and sand.

Behold in this refuge such a myriad of paths
To astonish the expectation of even dogs most dissolute.

Find ye o wandering dogs beneath the pads of your paw
The way of timber made straight and plane
A bridge of passage upon the atlantic tides.


Find ye here the way of coarsened sand
Dug among the bent and sparsely branched trees
As by the industrious diggings of the terrier known as jack russell.



Or here the way of the fine and softened grains
Smooth among the flat-top of grasses at the edge of land.



Yea, but all these welcoming ways are walks only tired and pedestrian
When compared against this, o glory of glories,
The Way of the Water,
Wherein the unending channels of libation and ablution
May carry a dog above and before all other elements.

The hide of my unsweating body
I sink into your cooling bath of redemption.
I walk as floating along your uplifting chemistry.
I wish never to depart from these your aqueducts of deepest clarity.



Upon the hour of our return
The sea has worked a wondrous confluence
And the way of timber and the flat-top of grasses
Have become one with the Way of Water.




Exegesis and Commentary
Well, apparently there is no underestimating the value of water to St. Frida. Here as everywhere we have traveled she will plunge herself into any pool of water during a walk. In fact, at Branbury State Park in Vermont a few years ago, we only just caught her before she shot down a water-carved funnel of stone into the Falls of Lara, which really might have been the end of her.

She is not, however, a swimmer, which makes the two of us alike. We love the water, we revere it, we find a certain transcendence in it, but neither one of us swims well, ondine as water spirit notwithstanding. I'm not, however, quite as willing to step blithely off into whatever body of water presents itself; fortunately, I had my Bean rubber shoes on for our return trip through the tidal flats of Wing Island.