thoughts accumulating at night
like mountain streams in Ashe County
eddies fill with dead logs, dreams, and to-dos
while splashing through memories
lazy river at McCoy
drifting off in your arms

poem by morgan harrington

Often I will lie down to fall asleep, and over the course of an hour, thoughts will accumulate and grow, causing me to grow more and more awake. The word “headwaters” felt appropriate as both a reference to the process of slow accumulation of a river’s origin and a double entendre for the thoughts in my head. The New River begins in Ashe County — the county where one branch of my spouse’s extended family lives. Her grandfather owned and operated a Christmas tree farm there amidst the shallow creeks that constitute the headwaters of the New. Downriver, near a town called Radford, my spouse and I used to swim and canoe in the New River at a point called McCoy, where the river is about a quarter mile wide.