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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3691 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Historical Markings of the Little Patapsco Jim Doss The sign tells me runaway slaves rested here for a few days before zigzagging a path to freedom in the north. I imagine them lying half-asleep under stars without the warm beacon of a campfire, or by day blending into little more than shadows inside thickets of trees that slope to the river where they trembled like hungry birds in winter. Now my boys come with their friends to this place, ignorant as spitballs about its history. They throw their towels down where the channel runs deep and the brown bodies of trout move like ghosts from sun to shadow. They swing out on thick ropes to summersault into the cold water, ride their bikes downhill accelerating like stunt men over a homemade jump, posing as they fly for a second before plunging into the river. Sometimes they just roll around in the grass like otters, teasing each other about who’s in love with who. And when I climb to the top of the bank to call them home, I always see that lover’s heart carved into the bark of a hundred-year-old maple, the initials inside that glow like fresh scars over their innocent heads, those three large K’s tinged in red. |
