on rivers, on Earth Day

To me, rivers have always been extraordinary things. A bit like living creatures. I mean, take a lake. It just is. Just sparkles in the sun and gently laps at the edge and stays in place in a dip in the Earth. But a river is so different. It’s alive. It rushes and bubbles and twinkles and swirls…and tantalises with river music; you know the kind? There’s a mystery about rivers, isn’t there? I mean, does anyone ever wonder where a lake comes from? But a river is different. Perhaps it starts with a drop on some spongy wet moss, too soaked to contain that drop, which drips on and joins a few other drops from a dripping cedar bough, which forms a tiny trickle somewhere up high in a mountain, and that trickle, full of collected drips wends its way to where you stand, polishing and tumbling stones, sustaining forests, creatures, giving life. I’m always mesmerized by rivers.

I think that life flows like a river. Sometimes it is calm and twinkling, and sometimes it’s at such a torrid rush that it sweeps us off our feet.