An afternoon in the park

Poinsett State Park,
near Sumter, S.C.,
Feb. 10, 5 p.m.

I’m sitting in my chair at this beautiful state park under some tall pines, listening to the wind coming and going in the trees. It’s so incredibly peaceful and quiet on a Sunday afternoon in early February.

For the longest time, I have been the only one here. It’s not the popular season to visit, but still I can’t understand why so few are enjoying this natural beauty. The perfect stillness and quiet persist until a family with small children arrive, the kids dashing out of the car to chase squirrels.

I can see the calm surface of Old Levi’s Mill Lake in front of me beyond the trees. The day has been cloudy, alternating with clearing patches of sky. Then dark clouds and a sprinkle of rain. They dissipate and it’s blue skies again. The sun keeps breaking through, again and again.

A little while ago, I was walking along the banks of Shanks Creek which feeds the lake. Its crystal clear waters are spring-fed and flow constantly over a white-sand bottom. Most of the creeks and ponds in the county hereabouts are dry or drying up with the lingering drought, but this little creek is steady and a reliable supply of water for the lake.

I love to watch flowing water. I am quite mesmerized by it. I sat down awhile on the banks of the creek to watch it silently moving along, twisting and turning around trees and bends. Occasionally I’d hear it spilling over logs or between rocks. About 8-10 feet wide and 5-6 inches deep, Shank’s Creek is just as I remember it from past visits.

When I was a kid in the 60s, my brother, father and I came here to swim in the lake during summer vacation. I’ll never forget those drives out from Sumter so many years ago now. To a 10-year-old city kid, the 18-mile trip seemed like a long drive deep into piney woodlands, a wilderness so to speak, so different from the urban surroundings I was accustomed to in New Orleans.

As I walked in the forest along the creek, I kept peering off into the woods, clear of undergrowth now in winter, but green with holly trees everwhere in the understory. I liked the way the low sun would illumine the forest floor with a comforting and mellow light, then disappear behind clouds, making that same scene suddenly appear darker and much more mysterious, as if twilight were rapidly approaching.

It’s about time to go now. I hear hawks out over the lake. The wind is picking up. Clouds have rolled in once again. It’ll be dark before long. All the picnic ables are empty. No barbecuing with grilled hamburger and steak aromas wafting along on a breeze. That one family that came earlier — they’re all walking along the earthern dam at the far end of the lake. A Nature outing. I’m glad to see it.

It’s quiet again and the wind seems to be calling to me. I look at those empty and rather forlorn picnic tables and can see distincly the faces of my students eating snacks and drinking sodas, laughing and talking to themselves after finishing a hike along the high hills of the Watereee River just above the lake. That was 20 years ago. Another lifetime ago. The spring of 1982. We had a great time on that field trip. This park and I go back a long way.

Now it’s time to go — before memories vanish, shadows lengthen, and night comes along, offering little or nothing to assuage those feelings of emptiness that will inevitably trail after me at the end of an otherwise pleasant afternoon.