Ardeche

UNSUPPORTED CODE I have stood atop the Ardeche cliffs, and surveyed the river far below, as she carves a pockmarked limestone rift; a distant view, an orderly flow. I have drifted through the Ardeche Gorge, and dared her chaos in a flimsy craft, midst roiling water's ebb and surge, by rocks that roar, through waves that laugh. Dispassionately seen from unreachable heights, her features are where they ought to be. Her bluegreen waters are patterned with white, her course, a God-dreamed symmetry. But upon the current, boiling, seething, all sense of purpose disappears. Survival calls for mindless weaving, through waves and rocks, and vital fears. Crash! through heartlifting foam flecked waves, Rush! down soultingling watery troughs, Dash! over ledges, anxiously brave, Stop! securely eddied, a breathtaking pause, My thoughts are echoed in a rock ringed cove, "Which is real, I've got to know, the patterned peace that's seen from above, or the passioned Hell that's sensed below?"