For Lovers Of Rivers

A girl falls in love with a river.

"I love your voice," says the girl,

"And the places you have been.

When I kiss you, I feel those places flow into me, too."

The girl falls in love in the summer,

When the river caresses her body in the most marvelous ways,

Singing low to her and holding her within itself.

The girl feels protected, even as she feels vulnerable to the river

In its vast reach, its depth, its agelessness.

It seems to her that the sun itself lives reflected in her lover's face

And so too, the stars in the night time.

In autumn, the river's touch turns bracing;

More so with the passage of time,

Until the girl takes to sitting on the bank,

Close by her lover's side--

Watching,

As even the trees shower gifts upon her love,

Trifles red and gold--

Which the river carries for a moment,

But never means to hold.

In winter, the girl shivers,

Her love still beautiful in stark black and white.

The river has nonetheless, and to her intense distress,

Grown impenetrable;

She searches its face with fingers numb and blue--

And the heartless river, so changed,

Gives her nothing in return except her own reflected face

Sad and abandoned,

Whispering, "River, I love you still,

Though you are cruel

And though my love no longer moves you."

A girl falls in love with a river,

With its face and the voice she hears--

By spring she is part of the river

Running high with a million tears.

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