can you read the face of a river?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

my grandmother once told me that a river is just like us. but it is more, she said.

she would take me to the river and ask me, “is she happy, grandson?”

and as a child i would tell her, “how can I tell?”

she would tell me that if she were happy,

would she frolic about, throwing up her arms

and uproot trees at her banks, just as an excited teenager would?


or would she just lie as a love-smitten girl would
 
on her bed and just smile? 
 

(now, I got confused) 
 

would the quiet waters be the face of seething anger— the type of anger that ripples on the 

surface and boils inside  the treacherous waters known to drown full-sized men?


i have seen cheerful, boisterous waters swallow a man and I thought, “here you go, capricious 

waters, you don’t kill people in your excitement!” 

and in some afternoons, the same waters, then in seething, raging anger but just flowing 

gracefully  have hugged the feet of men who crossed to their safety.


Chinjakuku— he was our village tailor. he got drunk one day.  river suam was in a cheerful, 

boisterous mood. so it was throwing up twigs and knocking off stones. she was in her element. 

Chinjakuku—alcohol stirring revolt in his head—was also in a cheerful, boisterous mood. he 

stepped into the waters and his flailing arms soon lost their strengths as he was suffocated by 

the embrace of the waters.

it was like when you throw up a child up and clutch it and throw it higher and higher and it 

slips through your hand. love is like that.  and when we searched for Chinjakuku, river suam 

just tucked him under her bosom. for one day. 


then next morning, he was floating and the waters were just aloof, innocent even, as if nothing 

had happened. 

the same waters that have quenched the thirsts of travelers with parched throats. 

the same waters that have hugged the feet of travellers who have crossed it to safety.

 
no, grandmother.

are these waters happy or sad or excited or hospitable? 

i can’t tell.

i am still on the river’s journey to read her face just like a palmist reads our future.




c) Salem Lorot/ echoesofthehills 2017

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for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Flood