Rivers Converge at the Sea

Rivers Converge at the Sea
by jsenn

I read that
all rivers
flow into
the sea and
it occurs
to me that
this water
is the same
water that
swells then
ebbs in
moon driven
tides to
lap at the
shorelines
of Sweden
and Alaska
Australia,
and Japan;
flows
in rivers,
lakes and
ponds; forms
of melted
winter snows,
still lakes
reflecting
sky like
mirrors on
great
mountaintops;
drips from
limestone
cathedral
ceilings
to form
pools within
underground
caves;
filters
through the
earth's
crust, boils,
then spews
upward in
great
fountains
through
fissures at
Yellowstone.

It's the same water.

I dipped my hand into it and wondered if a molecule of this water might have stood still at Moses' command when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, or been in one drop he drank after striking the rock.

I marveled that it might have bathed Cleopatra or been the first gulp a baby brontosaurus drank from a still pond.

Was a drop of it in the water that baptized my first son or in the first bath I gave the last of my four children?

Might it have watered the desert in Israel or flowed in darkness across the floor fathoms below the surface of the sea?

Could it have been under the foam tip of a giant wave which rolled across Galveston Island in the Hurricane of 1900, or frozen upon the beard of a survivor from the Titanic?

Did it run down the back of a Native American, stalking game in the rain, sink into the earth and rise, two hundred years later, to be tasted by myself from a paper cup in Hotsprings, Arkansas?

Solomon said,
"there is
nothing new
under the sun."

I have
learned
that all
things,
impossible,
improbable
or
unbelievable
have all,
happened
before.

The water
dripping
slowly
from my
fingertips
confirms
that
proclamation
for within
them I am
witness to
creation,
to history
and
tomorrow
morning,
high tide
will occur
at 5:38 A.M.

Joy Senn
7/24/2002