Last year, I decided to write about nature
more, and one of the first subjects was to be rivers. I’m a big fan of trees
and rocks, so I prefer rivers over oceans. Every inch of a river’s bank
is unique, and I love spending time sitting or standing next to one.
Instead of writing about rivers, though, I’ve been working on a project
that has taken much longer than expected. Even if I had gotten around to it, I'm sure I couldn't have written anything like The River's Tale.
My uncle, Jim Brown, passed away on January 12, 2016. He wrote this about six months before he died, and I'm happy to share it with you today.
The
River’s Tale
I have always liked water. For water is God’s gift of
life to
all
creatures. Of the bodies of water on
this earth, I prefer
the rivers and
creeks.
Lakes and ponds are for the most part man made and have
nothing really to
say to us. Instead, they lie still and speak
to us rarely and
lull us into a somber numbness.
Oceans have much to say, being so old and ancient, but
they
roar and shout and attempt to inspire us with their pure
grand
spectacle. More often than not, they terrify us with
their
sheer power and we wander not far into
their inviting blue depths.
But rivers and creeks, they speak of days gone by, in
strange
tongues and
languages spoken by long forgotten people,
who stood on the very spot where you stand, and gazed
like
you on the bubbling water as it rushes past the stones
and
boulders that
vainly try to impede its flow.
Those voices are long forgotten by us now. But the rivers
remember and they
continue to remember as long as they
tumble down from
their airy home in the mountain tops,
towards their
mother oceans from which they sprang,
only to be uptaken by the winds and breezes and then
dropped again on the mountain tops to begin the journey
back home again. To hear their stories, we only have to
sit quietly by
their stream beds, and listen to our
minds ear, for speak they will.
Jim Brown
In memory of James Troy Brown, Jr. (my dad's brother)
April 3, 1951- January 12, 2016
