Skipping Pebbles - Julia Kinney

The land and treelines sway up and downhill; 

the stream lying low- almost still-

shallow and layered with pebbles. 

A warm, fresh breeze fills the air, 

and the quietest chatter is heard from hikers a mile away. 

Sneakers kick up dirt and I stumble along roots 

as the path leads downward, and the gigantic eastern hemlocks

create a clearing for the stream to breathe. 

I meet the stream, lean down and feel some pebbles 

with the tips of my fingers before choosing one that is flat and smooth.

As I take my stance to skip the pebble, 

I remember. 

My father threw this same pebble into the stream.

It skipped three times, leaving ripples in its wake.

That moment of time replaces my own,

the past resurfacing in a way the pebble never could.

Here, watch this.

See how many times it skipped?

You try.

Plop! 

My pebble becomes sunken and forever lost from my grasp.

Though I remember this feeling in a state of deja vu, 

I do NOT remember 

if this memory is the reason 

I am so connected to the fluid waters of the world. 

Or the trees, or the soil, or the wild red raspberries 

as bright as the ones he would grow in his garden. 

I do not remember why I look for these things 

for Nature-

everywhere I go 

and why it allows me breath while at the same time 

constricting my heart. 

Can a father no longer around have such an effect on a child grown into their twenties?

Is absence that much stronger than presence? 

Why does he pop up in memory, the synapses of my brain firing away without care?

A man that my eyes and brain promise is looking back at me in the mirror, the image as still

as a stream, rippling only when I skip my fingers across it like pebbles.

Julia Kinney is an English major and Creative Writing minor in her senior year of college. This is her second publication in the ARCH Literary Journal. After graduation she hopes to continue writing poetry and fiction, as well as teach English. She can be reached at juliavkinney@outlook.com.