Summer and the River

Summer, the Guadalupe River, at least a couple of decades ago... A bend in any river, no matter how slowly that river flows, erodes the outside of that bend, digs away at the bank, separating stones from sand, nudging them into shallow water across and down the river, sorting them by size as it goes, the smaller, rounder ones in a layer on top. That’s where I was that summer afternoon, on my back, half-submerged in the gravel shallows, the water so warm I couldn’t feel it, my arms straight out from my body, interrupting the flow, causing almost waves as the water washed over. My ears were under water; I could hear only the flow of water around me. Above me the leaves and branches of trees overhanging the river moved gracefully in the hot breeze. Somehow the leaves and branches and water moved at the same tempo, not like music, but rather a deep humhmmm I could both see and feel. I don’t know how long I hovered in that flow, but it wasn’t long enough. In ways I can’t describe I’m still there, bathed in that most elemental of mediums, moving with the leaves, lost in a very long moment.