Miriam among the Reeds
2 Minutes Read Time
Anyone who had seen loons and grebes, kingfishers and bee-
eaters, larks, martins and thrushes, singly and in pairs, at rest or
swarming, on the banks, on the river, soaring overhead. Anyone
who heard their calls, their songs, the commotion they made in the
low, dry grasses. Anyone who had been taught to fear the crocodile,
the hippopotamus, the snake, the lizard, fish with teeth, fish with
knives, fish made of fire, fish lying in wait. Anyone who had felt
the world turned upside down, sand carried skyward to bury the
sun, or felt the slow breeze that followed and bore it away, or
felt the tack of pitch on one’s fingers from a cradle one helped to
make, a cradle made to float. Anyone who watched that cradle slide
down the throat of the hungry river, caught by forces one could
not see, borne up by more water than any ocean could hold, who
watched that child, helpless beneath a vast, empty sky. Anyone who
wondered how far he would go, how soon the end might come,
or listened to a heron’s gabble, or felt the swirl of bitter, brackish
water rising up to the knees, or felt mud oozing between toes, the
residue of unearthly things. Anyone would ask how long, how
long, and wait there in the shallows until the world grew old and
the river stopped moving.
Read more from Issue 16.2.
