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.