How long have they waited, without knowing, for this? Always the old one was channeling the young one's play, laying out examples. And the boy, aching to be recognized, postured himself after the other or, later, became himself in spite of him.
Finally they have arrived at this place, and look what they have built: a channel deep and wide enough for a school of minnows to navigate. From the bank once connected to the mainland they have carved an island on which they sit for hours, looking upstream, looking down, talking and not talking, knowing but not knowing how to say what this means to them. This is the day they will jointly own hereafter, and nothing, not next year' s snowmelt that will scour away their handiwork, not any span of time or space, not death, will ever alter it.