The river is quiet.
There are quite audible sounds of course —the river is filled with life, and life always leaves some traces of itself in the air; a vibration here, a scent there.
A rustle.
A drip.
But to me, it's quiet all the same. The quiet sounds of the river seem to embrace you, welcoming. An orchestra, who’s symphony is composed of all the sounds that are born from the life the water brings.
It ripples, the surface always flat but never still. The light of the sun betrays the way it moves, currents drifting in and out. Swirling patterns, an eddy in the bend where the current pushes in on itself.
A piece of bark drifts, caught in the flow. It stutters, when it meets one of the swirling eddies. Spins, for a moment, as if the river is unsure whether to carry it on; maybe let it drift to the safety of the muddy bank; or perhaps suck it down, to keep it safe beneath the river's skin with the cod fish and the tiny water spiders.
The small piece of bark must not belong here, though, because the river shifts it from one current to the next; allowing it to resume its journey on the way to find the place it belongs.
The river takes care of everything like that. The river is the blood of this land, and as it flows it takes, just as it gives back. Without it — although it might never occur to most — the land for hundreds; tens of hundreds of kilometres would be unthinkably different.
I watch a pelican, content in its place. The river takes care of the pelican, just as it takes care of all life that it births.
The bird sits in the river's skin. The river pulls her in its currents, just as it pulled the small piece of bark. The river treats all life with the same care, never concerned with what shape it is, how it sounds when it speaks.
The small piece of bark has just as much to say as the pelican, and the river knows it well.
The pelican must be looking for something, for she starts moving back up the river, webbed feet moving below the river's skin where you cannot see.
She lifts her wings, pauses for just a moment, not quite outstretched — as if she’s contemplating between staying in the river's embrace, or moving on to complete some pressing task.
And then she takes off. With bounds over the river's surface, her wings stretch to beat against the air — feet hopping on the surface of the river with every lift and dip of her wings.
The river supports her; for one second, then two, then three, until she lifts her legs and beats her wings up, towards the tree line and upriver. The pelican, too, is on a journey.
The river itself journeys from the mountains to the sea; it knows how it is to travel. It supports others, on their way.
I am on a journey now too, although I may not be entirely sure of which kind I am on. But I think that the river will support me, with acceptance that I so crave.
The river doesn’t discriminate.
Sometimes I think it should, though, just as I do now.
The life sounds of the river are disrupted by the hum of a motor. It’s the loud, obnoxious kind that brings with it other loud, obnoxious sounds, and although I should really take this lesson from the river to heart, I find that I can’t.
The one small tin motor boat is inconsequential, really, in the life of the river. That one, small boat with those three, small people are like the piece of bark. Tiny. Irrelevant, in the life of the river.
But like the piece of bark, there is not just one. Like the piece of bark, there are thousands of other pieces of bark, specks of mud, tiny organisms, leaves, giant branches of fallen trees, millions of pieces that make up the life of the river; but those pieces of bark are other people, those tiny organisms tiny specs of a shredded plastic bag, an empty can. A giant ferry boat. A can of waste that is surreptitiously dumped into the depths of the river. The fallen branch is a concrete dam, and another dam, and another dam, so that the thousands of people scuttling like ants over the river can take ownership of the river's blood. They dig pipes into the ground, with pumps that suck and suck.
The river always gives life.
But these people on the river take what it gives them; use it to grow trees, grow wheat, give life to the ground — and they take and take, never giving anything back.
They have no concept of what it is - to give their life to the river, like the pelican will, like the piece of bark will.
They take the life the river gives them, and they squander it away.
They use it to pump life into the concrete forests; but no life is ever born from those forests in return.
I think the river is dying.
The river still takes care of all the life that comes to her, indiscriminately.
written [with sufficient irony] on the deck of a petrol guzzling houseboat, on the river
o.e.l - 21/08/2021