Wild river at night

Chatterings, whisperings, callings, maybe even a yell from down below or far above – the conversations come from every direction before the moon can clear the trees and tell a different story. Here in the dark, the moving water is a mystery – carrying itself into every space around as it slides over pebbles, between willow shoots around bends. Water seems to spread everywhere leaving us fearful of the next step falling into some clatter box of wet sounds. Now there is just voice. An incessant dialogue of those stones, trees and almost silent pools carries on. Sit and listen and the voices pulse in imagined unison, small sounds turn on and off. Upstream, the fast water rushing over boulders loses its voice over the water curling around the submerged log in the middle of the pool. Turn downstream and the gravelly riffle below comes to life telling its own story. All this will be different under the moonlight. All this will change with sunrise. But right now there is only the sound of water caressing the earth.