Flowing down through pine forest
mountain, rock and time,
the river,
white foam a comical beard,
tells its story to those who choose to listen.
The roar of its fall
recalls others' crashing
into the shark’s teeth rocks below.
The bubble, the gurgle of the happy infant stream
deepens like the water, an animal growl
rumbling in the belly of the earth.
Deeper and deeper runs the fluid
carving lines of time on smooth faces of rock,
and on and on it moves -
through stone, history and wood -
and screams its tale.
The noise of the water reaches us through the trees.
We run like laughing children
to the sound,
playing as we go, enjoying
the healthy bloom of youth
We are alone for the first time in our world,
childlike minds in a place too old for age,
time too long passed to be remembered,
and our time here is seconds in comparison.
Our voices shrink, now less than a whisper
as we listen to nature filling our ears;
we follow the journey chosen by the water drops
as they mingle, as they struggle,
to remain themselves.
Wonder and awe roam across our faces
trying to understand what we know we could not.
The first voices desire to feel the water
and ignites the sparkle soon to be drowned.
Clothes are thrown with abandon,
bodies thrown into surface unknown,
screams of shock at the icy water
changing to screams of no control.
Figures rush past as the water had before,
screams are swallowed like our bodies
by the white foam roar.
And we can only imagine the lines appearing on the faces
before smashing almost silent, into carved, aged rocks.
The river telling its story of old,
cloaked in roars and growls;
we turn away silent, no longer children
no longer knowing we could not understand.
The river flows through Time as a story of Death.