It was a simple form of transportation—the inflated tube of a tire. The river in Mississippi was brown and narrow, shaded by trees, with such an unambitious current.

My companion brought a bottle of wine, and some simple cookies he’d made that morning. And we spent the hot day in the water going nowhere on such a very little boat…

Tonight, there’s a cold, gentle rain, and the train whistle’s blowing on and on. The sound travels east to west from a Mississippi summer long ago to Louisiana this winter midnight as I type, and on westward through the night…