The Journey Home #4: My River

There is magic in the sound of moving water.

I have been listening to this sound for as long as I can remember. In my youth, in Central Michigan, my water was a broad lowland river, nearly silent. You had to stand quietly to hear the hiss and gurgle of its waters as they slipped by fallen logs and around the bends and islands. In the spring it would leave its banks, spread out across the floodplain, and whisper its way through woodlot and fencerow and across the fields. It was never noisy or bold. That river taught me that sometimes patience is needed to hear to song of the waters.

My River #1 (©2011 by Richard X. Moore)

My child’s-eye view of the world convinced me that all waters were somehow like mine. As I grew older and my experiences took me beyond the narrow orbit around my home, I learned quickly that all waters were not the same. Some ran laughing over rocks, some thundered through narrow canyons, some lapped gently at long ribbons of sand, some crashed with fury against a rocky shore, some sat in silence except for the murmur of ripples in the breeze. But no matter where and how I found them, they all sang a familiar song. Any time I found myself in the company of moving water, I felt as though I were exactly where I belonged.

My River #2: Relics (©2011 by Richard X. Moore)

I have returned to my river, the Tittabawassee, back to the beginning of my love affair with moving water. I have found things to be very different but, strangely enough, still the same. I’ve come back to a peace that I seem to have forgotten long ago. to welcoming arms that before I had only imagined. It’s good to be home.

RXM