Of the waterfall;
I am the echo-system,
A force of nature!
My feelings are the water.
I’m afraid of the water.
At the top of the cliff, looking up-river, the blue-green water seems so placid, deceptively disguising the fearsome power that will be unleashed as gravity pulls inexorably at the lethargic pace of the wide river. The sun glints off the surface only. The current is effected only by a twig or a rock formation below the surface. At the precipice, the dark blue mirror turns translucent as the water curves over the rock out-cropping which projects from the cliff-edge. Just over the arching edge, the water turns to a white and sparkly curtain as it plunges through the air, capturing the atmosphere on the descent. This is the first visual hint of the awesome power and force of the falls.
The very first hint, however, is the sound. The sound is ubiquitous. It pervades everywhere creating a sense of silence. The sound is so pervasive—deafening—that nothing else can be heard. It is not just a roar, nor just a thunder. The whole canyon pulsates like a heartbeat with the reverberation. I am aware of no sound, just the throbbing. All the way down the cliff-face the water drops; it separates into little silvery rivulets around the edges, dividing, coming together, beating at any obstruction. A fine mist shrouds the white pillar of falling water. Sparkly, it is so sparkly!
With my back to the sun I catch my breath as the light is refracted in the fine mist creating rainbows. Clinging to the rock-face, velvety green with moss and lichens, a spindly dwarfed conifer, bonsai-like, clings tenaciously. The tree is lusciously green, never having lacked water, but it is stunted and misshapen. Its roots, like the gnarled arthritic fingers of the ancient ones, grip to the rocks in the effort not to succumb to the awesome force of the water. All those years of effort has interfered with the potential of the tree to grow straight and tall like the others of its species far from the craggy rocks. A rainbow encircles the tree’s crown, much like a halo depicted a Renaissance illustration of the Christ. Here and there along the descent, a few clear drops separate from the opaque white mass of plummeting water. These drops seem to fall in slow motion; the descent giving a clearer sense of the height from which the turbulent pale bulk of water must drop.
At the edges of the lacy veil in places along the cliff, small puddles form on narrow ledges where endless years of pounding have eroded small indentations. Little song birds—chickadees, finches, sparrows and even the occasional titmouse—flit and splash in the pooletts. Total abandon in their splashing is not possible because they always keep an eye out for predators or rivals from which they must flee or guard their territory. The falling water, over the centuries (or is it millennia?) has dug a deep sandy-bottomed pool. Under the surface it is as if the water is boiling down, rather than boiling up from the bottom as happens in a hot cauldron. Bubbles form deep beneath the surface toward the sandy depth as water-drops act like millions of tiny needles piercing the watery plane making an opaque white funnel below. There is just too much air to be dissolved in the oxygen saturated pool. The tiny bubbles fizz and effervesce, some coming together into larger air pockets deeply below, only to rise to the surface and explode, contributing to the fine mist creating a cool damp vapor in the basin.
On the surface near the clear, translucent edges of the white mist, larger bubbles float lazily away from the angry and powerful whiteness, sauntering nonchalantly away from the conflagration. Some just meander downstream until they pop. Others accumulate along the edges of the deceptively calm pool around rocky outcroppings, boulders, and plants trailing twig-tips, leaves, branches or roots into water. The pool itself is clear and deep. The clarity makes the depth impossible to judge. The pool widens, the depth shallows and again the river is a deceptively calm and meandering. The only evidence of water’s power is the din of its massive volume succumbing to the inevitable pull of gravity.
