What the River Carries

The river bends without memory, carrying leaves that once held chlorophyll, stones worn smooth by decades of collision. It forgets where it came from even as it flows toward salt.

A child stands at the bank and watches her reflection splinter, reform, splinter again— learning the first lesson: nothing holds. The water takes her name and gives it back turned strange, unrecognizable.

Years later she returns to find the current faster, colder, older. The same river, always different. She understands now that persistence is not about staying, but about motion.

What we leave behind travels further than we ever could. Her grandmother's prayer dissolves in rapids two countries away. A coin from her childhood lodges in the silt, spending its brightness on no one.

The river carries what we cannot keep, polishes our losses into something small enough to fit in a closed fist, then opens its hand and lets them go. We stand at the edge, always saying goodbye.