The River

The leaves are changing. It seems autumn has finally arrived here on the western plains. The trees quiver in deep yellow and lose their leaves reluctantly. While running this week, I crossed over the South Platte River and was struck by its beauty. Even in the shadows of factories and paper mills, half-abandoned strip malls and frontage roads, the river runs on, white foam in its eddies, navy waves and shimmering sunlight dancing in its ripples. For a flash of a moment I was transported to a time when the river was nestled in the high grasses and trees along its banks in a time before today’s people came and burdened the landscape with our machinations and creations. It was simple and pleasant. And while these writings are intended to paint pictures of the future making itself available in the present, the past seemed to call to me and ask that I share in its legacy. I have heard it said that sadness is dwelling in the past and fear is dwelling in the future. I have to actively resist succumbing to sadness when I think about the past, especially in terms of the natural world. Sure, humans have always been humans, silly and violent, beautiful and shortsighted, but I can’t help but imagine a time when the natural world was more abundant and vibrant, quiet yet threatening. In all this idealized dreaming and lamenting upon a past gone, a forest destroyed, an ocean plasticked, there rolls the South Platte River. It still meanders through the high plains on its descent from the Rocky Mountains, freckled with golden leaves from aspen trees and cottonwoods. It still shimmers in the sun until it meets with the North Platte and together, now one, they persist until they meet the Missouri, carrying Colorado snow melt and cow manure and fertilizer into the Mississippi and on into the Gulf of Mexico. The persistence is profound and heartening. The air is crisp and finally breathable. The trees truly stunning. The river immaculate, still running, the future beckoning, downstream.