Memory Of The Upper Provo…read more
Perfect dark blue line,
stretched transparently thin.
Like taffy tumbling over and over
as it bends and twists and turns,
but never breaks.
Each rivulet and riffle
tells the story-
connecting the dots between
the headwaters of how it all began,
and the tailwaters of how it all ends.
How did it all begin?
The same story plays out each year.
A year ago today, then tomorrow,
a little warmth,
then warmer still.
Mountain shoulders appear smiling in a beautiful
green and white patterned dress.
Warmer still, and the dress melts away
to fiery red beneath--
melting slowly at first,
then faster,
then powerless to the call.
Winter cedes to the universal order:
Two forces become one--
Heat and Gravity
join together each tendril of melted snow
like interlocked fingers
making sweet, soft noises as they tumble unknowingly,
happily,
gleefully,
to where they belong.
Raging rapids,
calm flats,
trout-filled pools,
and riffles that whisper secrets from upriver
and predictions of what's below.
Snow and rain and hail have become River.
Soapstone pools,
happy hikes,
jumping off of logs,
sending wishes under a bridge.
A river fulfills the promise of life together under the blue sky:
Baking sun on garden shores.
Each river is unique;
a love story tied between how it all begins
and how it all ends.
How does it all end?
Autumn slows the story,
Spring runs rapid with confused and turgid channels,
summer meets the full measure of happiness.
But winter's cold and cruel isolation
cannot stop current beneath the ice.
The heart of the river beats always.
A river never ends.
The stretch between how it all began and how it all ends
is infinite,
ever-flowing,
unceasing.
Time, distance, dam, or diversion:
The heart of the mountain only beats louder;
its pulse never wavers,
never ends.
