Saturday, July 22, 2017

water

We've been having very regular rainfalls this summer, and we're more than five inches above the average, according to the weatherman this morning.

The brook usually dries up in August, but I don't think it's going to this year; the other day I went out looking for a rainbow after a short downpour and heard the water raging. It comes from streets up above us, down a hill and then turns a corner right on to our property and it was brown from all the soil carried along in the fast-moving water.



Water Never the Same

Beside a flowing river sit and gaze,
And see how it perpetually runs
In wave on wave, in many thousand turns,
As through the fields it takes its fluid ways.

Thou'lt never see again the wave which first
Flow'd by thee; water never is the same;
It passes day by day, although the name
Of water and river doth persist.

So changes man, and will not be tomorrow
That which he is today, he cannot borrow
That strength which time doth alter and consume:
Until our death one name we do retain;
Although today no parcel doth remain
Of what I was, the name I still assume.

   -   Jean-Bapiste Chassignet,   (trans. by Frank Warnke)

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