The River That Remembers
Beneath the hush of timeless skies,
Where starlight lingers, where silence lies,
A river winds through stone and loam,
Carrying echoes, carrying home.
Its waters hold a thousand years,
Of laughter, sorrow, hope, and fears;
It whispers soft to root and reed,
Of broken vows and secret need.
The mountain gave it ancient birth,
From caverns deep within the earth,
Where molten fire and glaciers meet,
And time runs cold, yet strangely sweet.
It saw the first of hunters tread,
The forests vast, the deer they bled,
It heard their songs, their cries of prayer,
It felt the weight of all they bear.
It watched as kingdoms rose and fell,
It bore the ashes, heard the knell;
It saw the banners, bold and bright,
Dissolve to tatters in the night.
The river murmured, patient still,
While empires bent to greed and will,
It carried secrets, dark and deep,
That none could bury, none could keep.
Upon its banks, a poet dreamed,
He wrote of stars, and how they gleamed,
Of love that withered, love that burned,
Of all the lessons never learned.
A soldier too, once washed his hands,
Of dust from far and bitter lands,
He knelt, he wept, his blood ran red,
The river held what must be said.
A child then cast a paper boat,
She watched it sway, she watched it float,
She whispered wishes, small, sincere,
The river promised: “I still hear.”
So time unspooled, and still it runs,
Through silver nights, through golden suns,
It carries voices, grief, and mirth,
The shifting heart of ancient earth.
And if you walk beside its tide,
And if you pause, and if you hide,
You’ll hear your own heart’s fragile hymn,
Reflected soft, returned within.
For rivers do not just forget,
They keep the truth we can’t regret,
They hold the stories, vast, untold—
And flow them back when we grow old.
So kneel, and listen, by its side,
The river does not choose, divide;
It holds us all, the lost, the known,
And sings us back into our own.