#20, August 4, 1999
The river. It means so many things to us: commerce,
recreation, even the curse of floods. For me, the river also brings inspiration
and rejuvenation. Whether I'm sitting beside the Petaluma with my son, canoeing
on the Russian, or swimming salmon-like in the ice clear waters of the Smith,
I'm apt to recall my favorite quote from Muir: "God bless all things that
flow."
But I'm partial to another river, one that flows deeper and
wider. It is a river that, as they say in the Upanishads, is "nearer than
breath, than heartbeat." I wrote a poem about it, for a children's picture
book. The poem's inspiration came to me the morning after a fierce thunderstorm
in the Tetons. The meadow where I had camped was washed with rain and light. As
I bent to drink from a bubbling spring, and my lips met the sweet cold water,
this river was revealed…
Touch the river...
...and what do you touch? Where does the river run? Where
does it begin? What touches you when you touch the river? Much more than water
on your skin!
See your touch expand in slow perfect circles: waves on a
water highway, disappearing but still there. Where will they go?
Your touch runs upstream, leaping cataracts with steelhead
and salmon, into brook and creek, and alpine lake, and reservoir. You touch the
streams that flow through pipes down from mountains, into showers, swimming
pools, and drinking fountains, and sprinklers shooting water sinking into the
earth of the farmers' fields.
You touch the invisible ocean: water moving slowly, silent,
underground. Feel the roots of ten trillion plants growing all around the green
world. Reach into the coconut's milk, the lupine's nectar, sweet delicious
apple juice.
Your touch drifts downstream, lazily wends round river
bends, through swamps and salt marshes. It finds the long legs of an egret
standing tall above the tiny shining fish. You touch them one and all.
Go ahead! Touch the stars -- the prickly starfish on the rocky shore, and more: sponges,
lobsters, seals, herring, kelp and...whales! You touch the whales, as they rise
and dive and sing and play. And you touch every microscopic phytoplankton every
whale will eat today.
You’re touching earth's one ocean never-ending to its
farthest reaches, and tickling the toes of little children on distant beaches.
Down, down, deep at the center of the bottom of the ocean,
you touch the earth expanding, building volcanic islands, pushing up mighty
mountains, keeping continents in motion.
You reach up from the salty seas, up onto the land with a
thousand arms, a million fingers. Far
to the north and south, your fingers touch the glaciers at the river's mouth.
And with your icy grip upon the mountain's crown, feel your fingers as they
slowly pull the mighty mountains down.
Touch the river, the river rising in mist, and settling
gently as dew on grass, touching grasshopper jaws, zebra tongues, and lion
paws… or boiling into towering thunderclouds, falling hard on red rock. Feel
your way down desert canyons, through dark, muddy water flanked by towering
sandstone walls… and through mountain canyons, over churning waterfalls… and
into the jungle, where the broad green river twists, and crawls.
You touch creation -- every place where life lives, where
water flows: every rain cloud and rainbow, every cell in your body, every petal
on the rose -- when you touch the
river.
This world of water is connected -- like strands of a spider's web, like the roots and branches of a tree --to you and me, as we touch the river.
Touch
the river…