I recognize how she is carved 

From the liquid that shapes her  

Fashioned by countless tumbles & snow melts. 

It as if her hair is combed constantly  

For strands flow for miles, making a long tress. 

This hair of hers comes in an assortment of 

Twists, turns, reflections, textures 

Tiny waves, pressed, and curled. 

Her body, cool, cold at times 

Always in transit, flux, liminal. 

Her banks, like persistent suiters 

Follow her everywhere 

Only interrupted by the abrupt advances 

Of cliffs that dive in, but lose her 

While holding her at the same time 

For she is a trickster, more so than the ravens 

Dippers, and geese who tease. 

She will let me stumble  

Upon her rocks and boulders 

Like a babe learning to walk  

Like an adult…learning. 

You can see her inner personality 

In the form of falls 

Which roll over a series 

Of large stones and hills 

Or fall like a skydiver from 

A precipice, landing in a boom and roar. 

There have been times I’ve heard this 

Rumble, as if she shakes the ground 

With a message I must listen to. 

I am small then, in her presence 

My feet soft on her sides, my breath slow. 

But one turn around a cliff 

Into a secluded ravine 

And she becomes quiet 

As if she doesn’t even exist. 

It is within these areas of silence 

Where she tells me secrets 

Of everything and all, an endless epiphany 

And I realize I already know these things and have 

Known them, but, once I leave her whisper 

I will remember them only by what they felt like 

Recalling her faint rush of current 

An echo of the river she will become.