Watching the water flow past a bend in the river. The same place, the same time of day, every week for 52 weeks. A year in the life.

Week 4

The shops are stripped of all essential goods, the streets are quiet and the hospitals wait expectantly. Do not move, do not mix; stay at home and await further instructions. Ignoring all this, keeping her distance, the river flows ever onward.

Before the stream comes the spring, before that comes the aquifer, before the aquifer the rain, before the rain the cloud and before the cloud the sea. Forever circulating, the whole thing a constant cycle.

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers

Langston Hughes – The Negro Speaks of Rivers