At first, the speaker walks a shaded north-slope path, greeting familiar plants—huckleberry, hemlock, ferns, ginger, viney maple—that seem healthy in the deep duff. But the mood shifts when the riverbed below appears shrunken, its stones exposed among dried caddis cases and empty snail shells. No trout wait for mayflies, no osprey waits for trout. The water has gone elsewhere, falling as flood. Then the speaker notices a slug stranded in hot dust and, despite no fondness for slugs, moves it with two twigs. That small rescue opens into worry about a sunstruck orchard, a panting flock, a failing well, and a garden hard as ice. The tone is tender and quietly anxious: everyone will soon have to shift. The ending suggests survival now takes deliberate care and fellow feeling, not just luck.
More Than Luck — Summary
Padding along among roots and stobs in shade, I take the north-slope path to see old friends: red huckleberry and mountain hemlock subsisting on nurse logs amid moss; vanilla leaf, false Solomon's seal, sword fern, bracken, sorrel, twinflower, wild ginger, salmonberry, maiden-hair fern, ninebark, viney maple. They seem well; it's steep shade and deep mouldering duff. Enough rain has alighted upon this slope for centuries to build tall firs, straight cedars, twisted, hoary, wrangling maples.
Yet the riverbed below seems troubled, shrunken. Stones I never see have suddenly shown themselves, shouldering past dried caddis cases and empty snail shells, standing in desiccated air. Here no trout hide from tiring current, awaiting mayflies. No osprey hovers above, awaiting trout. The river has shifted from its bed, lifted past every thirst, and gone to fall somewhere in the world as flood.
A slug has blundered into dust in broiling sun and is in trouble. Not one for caressing slugs, I break two twigs for chopsticks, and move the mollusk to, I hope, a better place. In fellow feeling I expound to the slug my sunstruck orchard, panting flock, failing well and kitchen garden hard as ice. We'll all of us start shifting soon, I tell it, as ants shift from a burning glass. From here on you and I will need what's more than luck.