The Ancient Path

Cahaba River NWR, Alabama

From an elevated place, the Cahaba RiverCahaba RiverAlabama's longest free-flowing river, moving south through rock, shoal, farm, forest, and town before joining the Alabama River system. does not announce itself. It slips through the timber and keeps its old course, shallow in places and dark in others, with just enough shine to show the bend.

The river is not alone in the frame. It is held by a riparian corridorRiparian corridorThe living edge along a river: roots, shade, mud, floodplain, insects, birds, fish, and every small negotiation between land and water. of sweetgum, sycamore, oak, and understory green. The trees do not frame the water so much as keep company with it.

A few birds cross the sky in the distance, not quite the subject and not quite background. They are more like proof of use. The place is being crossed, hunted, shaded, fed from, and passed through.

The refuge protects more than scenery. It protects a working river system where shoals, current, forest, fish, mussels, insects, and plants keep depending on each other. The rare Cahaba lilyCahaba lilyAlso called shoals lily. It blooms in swift, rocky, sunny shoals, usually from mid-May to mid-June. is the famous emblem, but the photograph is really about the whole corridor.

The camera catches one bend, but the Cahaba keeps insisting on more than one story at a time: water crossing rock, birds crossing sky, forest crossing into river, and time moving through all of it.