The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over from the basement of time. Rivers course through my dreams, rivers cold and fast, rivers well-known and rivers nameless, rivers that seem like ribbons of blue water twisting through wide valleys, narrow rivers folded in layers of darkening shadows, rivers that have eroded down deep into a mountain's belly, sculpted the land. Peeled back the planet's history exposing the texture of time itself. Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew them. We have ignored this cancer for so long that the romance of environmental concern is already fading in the shadow of the grim realities of lakes, rivers and bays where all forms of life have been smothered by untreated wastes, and oceans which no longer provide us with food.
People stare into the moving water, captivated, as they are when gazing into a fire.
The rivers' reflections of our lives and experiences are endless. The water calls up our own ambitions of flowing with ease, of navigating the unknown. Streams represent constant rebirth. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers.