The Writings of the River

Over centuries, the river writes its story –

A tale of ebbs and flows,

Of gentle suns and storming throes

Of kingdoms and their glory.

 

Over dynasties, it carves a path –

Erosion, sediment, and time –

As periodic wars appear to rhyme

Though armies change and find new reasons for their wrath.

 

Over destinies, the river shifts its sands

Though each side claims the land was always cut

By one unchanging border, ever shut

Against another nation’s greedy hands.

 

Over rhapsodies of battle and of mourning,

The river lifts its heavy song

And runs blood-red to purple seas as long

As present kings heed not its cold refrains of warning.

 

Over royalties, the waters rise.

The river swells to flood the thrones that stayed so dry.

The voices of the casualties refuse to die.

They wash away the kingdoms as they realize

They were all the same, despite each separate guise

Of flags and uniforms beneath the sky

And over mingled waters of the river,

Which writes of death and new rebirth, and tries

To guide the generations toward a different kind of prize.

 

 

 

This poem presents an imagined story of what a river sees over a long span of time. It sees kingdoms rise, fall, and change as they battle one another. Over such a long time, the river sees the futility of all the fighting and the dying, as the blood mixes with the water. Eventually, the river rises to wash away it all, with hope that something new, and more harmonious, will come.