some rivers i've known

Crossing the River at Lome
 Togo, West Africa
February 2012

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.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Langston Hughes

they know the songs of grasses and the script of snakes

"The Mara belongs to the Maasai or the Maasai to the Mara.  The umbilical cord between man and earth has not been severed here. The Maasai pasture their cattle next to leopard and lion.  They know the songs of grasses and the script of snakes. They move like thin shadows across the savannah. A warrior with a red cloak draped over his shoulder stand silhouetted against the sun.  Beefeaters, blood-drinkers, the Maasai are one of the last strongholds of nomadic life."

- Terry Tempest Williams from An Unspoken Hunger