River

Sit by me and I shall speak to you. There are many paths that lead you to me; and take me to you. Those who tread hastily cannot even see me but there are some who are drawn to my murmuring as I lucidly slide over smooth stones here and dash against those rocks over there. They call me Tanana but I have many names. It is true, I am an ever changing constancy. But for now, come; sit by me and I shall tell you a story of long ago, when the earth was young and amorous, with rich, dark soil, deep, velvety colors; and when the great mammoths roamed the land.

This story is about how I got this name, Tanana. And also about Quanah; a young man with the kind of restlessness that only matched mine. He had no parents so he belonged to everybody and laid claim to no one. Year after year I rained on him and watched him dance inside my pleasure and weep inside my longing. And I waited. For I knew that pain was laboring hard on him until, as a dark cloud, he would be laden with such raw emotions that would one day flood the earth with life.

And the time came.

She appeared suddenly one day. He found her sitting on a rock by his path, and she rose upon seeing him as if she were waiting for him; as if he had called her. Indeed, somewhere outside of time and space, he had called her, and she had been sent. And that moment was like every other; the falling of the first drops of summer rain, the dawn bird song, the moon caught in a swoon; all perfect parts of one total unity.

“What is your name,” he asked.

With her unblinking eyes set on him, she smiled gently and said, “Tanana”.

“ Tanana,” he almost whispered; and she nodded.

Their’s was a strange companionship for they never asked of each other where they lived or who they were. Their conversations to others would’ve sounded disjointed but the effusions of the heart are held poorly by language and what passed between them had little outward bearing. They had a tacit understanding that if he set out for her, she would find him. And so she would return, he never watched her leave.

Quanah had been awakened to a new world of the soul and was brought to the serene realization that anything received was meant for all and anything given did but come from all. These days were the heart of Quanah’s existence and the living of it left him pale and feverish even as his spirit grew more brilliant than any earthly thing. Memories of the moments when Tanana was near were like the Northern Lights; ghostly curtains that swayed and enchanted his heart. Like a fleeting, soulful melody belonging to another time.

The day he crept behind Tanana as she left marked another kind of awakening. Many times he felt like turning back but her unhurried manner and the ease of the path she walked upon goaded him on, until she came to me. As Quanah watched intently from his hiding place, Tanana seemed to glide right into the middle of my path and faced the direction of the water flow and the sudden wind.

With her hair flowing like my waters and her hands stretched before her, she became one with me. At first it appeared to Quanah as if she were enveloped in a mist but then he realized that the mist was her. He walked slowly towards her and into her fading gaze. He watched her form turn into smoky ribbons that dissolved in the water and seem to hang momentarily, like a cherished promise, in the air before vanishing completely.

What can be said about the days that followed that event except that they were the fire that made Quanah lose himself in its intensity and also molded him. He ran upon the earth chasing the winds and searching the mists, but his burning and heaving chest could not lessen or match his pain. Many times he knelt beside me and let his hot tears mix with my cool waters. And I carried them away and made them whatever I became; the rains people pray for, the shading clouds, an angry storm, the sea so full of secrets.

And then one day he stopped searching for her. She was everywhere. He saw her hair in the wings of a raven as it took flight. And there was her breath in the dawn breeze. The frail branches of trees were her fingers that brushed against him as he passed them by. The eyes of every living thing in submission were hers. She flowed through him, around him, over him until there was no place where she was not.

Over the years his heart journeyed great distances and opened up to make place for all; until he came to live inside everything he had touched. To a few he appeared as a mere beggar but many saw him for the giant he truly was. Their yearning for him was great but nothing like what he felt for Tanana. For she coursed relentlessly through his being, at once blinding him into wakefulness, and then lulling him to dreams. But he never spoke of her. Once, though, as he sat with those who loved him, he took her name. He spoke of a dream where he had flown high up into the sky, higher than any mountain until he could see the whole earth all at once.

“What did it look like,” they asked.

He drew a circle in the air and said, “Like so. Like life.”

They were all quiet; then one asked, “What color was it?”

He sighed and gazed wistfully at the ground, his eyes like the salty ocean.
He replied in a clear voice, “It was the color of love…the color of Tanana.”