081313 #copperhead But right now we're walking. The canoe is stashed under some grapevines and a scrawny little clump of silver maple that probably won't even be here after the next big flood. As we hove the hull, his hand curled around the bow deck plate, mine around the stern seat, in one satisfyingly muscular swoosh over the whisperings and scrapings of weeds, a fluttering of samaras ticked and tapped into the bottom of the boat. Most of them didn't have far enough to fall to even begin helicoptering. Somehow their presence in the boat, all tan with feathery striations, some with a pulse of green at the seed end, made the boat and all our gear look already half gone back to prehistory; like maybe if we wait a moment too long to come back here, there will be nothing but a faint mound, maybe the dull shine of some long-buried aluminum poking through, less noticeable than an ancient soda can.