To the Measure of Water
As every summer — since forever — he had walked miles, backpack on his shoulders, to find her trace again, scrutinizing each rock with a magnifying glass, roaming every path that might lead him to her, to her source. He knew she had passed through here, and the valley inevitably held clues of her past or underground presence, which he tried to capture with tools of his own making, alone under the blazing sun.
Was it the effect of heat and fatigue? One day, just as he was about to stop his search and resume it the next morning, he heard her. At first he thought it was the presence — invisible after all — of a lost shepherd. Then he listened more closely, and from a gleaming rock came the soft voice of the water:
…
I am truly here for whoever knows how to listen
at times visible, at times hidden, I navigate by sight
beneath above within without
I rise and fall I melt into the landscape
I sink into the depths
I carve my bed and shape the earth I sculpt the rock that nourishes me
I slip into every crevice until I vanish, then reappear, elsewhere
I have neither beginning nor end and endlessly transform
I am in all my states
I flow from the source and continually escape whoever tries to lead me
I move across hills and hollows, from valleys to washhouses, from hand to hand
I am studied scrupulously
I am tracked I am sought
I am gathered I am channelled
I am preserved I am used
I am exploited I am spent
despite appearances, I am not transparent
I keep within me unfathomable secrets
…
The water spoke to him gently and he felt as though rocked. If it was a hallucination, it was providence… The water was there. She was everywhere, always. But until when?
Where would water come from once the glaciers were gone? How would we manage without her? Would she still whisper in the valley?
Questions streamed as dehydration loomed. He absolutely had to return to the village. After a long walk, he sat down in the shade of the trees on the square, between the washhouse and the fountain where he could go refresh himself. As he regained his senses, bluish and orange reflections shimmered from the running water, and in them he saw a new sign she was giving him in passing.
Anne-Lou Vicente @annelouvicente