The river, the river

That’s the Tappen Zee Bridge. The Commodore and I went up to the Newburgh Bridge this afternoon, past Croton, Stony, and Indian Points, where the river narrows and deepens and the Hudson Highlands, those bones of ancient mountains, come right down to the water. Yes, they’ve been coming down to the water for millennia now, slowly and inexorably. We went under the Bear Mountain Bridge, at Anthony’s Nose, past the gray gloom of West Point and Storm King’s pate. Breakneck Ridge and Pollepel Island, with the ruins of Bannerman’s Arsenal, places I've seen from above, as it were, on hikes.

And then back in the dark, the water taking in the light of a nearly-three-quarters moon and breaking it into millions of quivering pieces.