Home Planet: On this day, a river roars through it

The boy came to meet the river.

Like a child in an old fairy tale – a story about a boy who lives in a village with a dragon, a creature that rises from its slumber to roar to life, to make all who see it tremble with awe – the little boy came to the river’s edge.

He held his father’s hand as they stepped out onto the bridge that crossed over the water. Below him, the river, fed by the long winter’s snow and rain, roiled and churned and tumbled over itself, cascading over boulders as big as houses, falling and then leaping in towering waves that brushed the bridge beneath his feet.

The spray, caught by the wind, washed over him and settled on him like a veil, decorating his fair hair with tiny droplets that sparkled like a crown of diamonds in the Sunday morning sunshine.

The boy clung to his father as they reached the middle of the stream. His mother, an infant cradled in a sling, a baby sister safe and sleeping in a lifeboat of colorful fabric against her mother’s body, followed the pair.

There were others, also drawn to the spectacle, standing on the span. Adults snapped photos of children framed against the torrent. Teenage girls ran from one side of the bridge to the other, squealing when the breeze snatched the mist rising from the thundering river and tossed it toward them.

The river, the dragon that lives in a bed of stone that runs through the center of this city, was alive and showing its power.

Emboldened, the little boy let go of his father’s hand. He walked over to the rail and peered down at the white water, at a giant log that had been carried downstream by the force of the flood until it was trapped between two rocks.

Watching it bob up and down but never quite break free, he looked at the whirlpools and the foam. He watched birds circle below him.

Drawn by the power of the raging river, by the challenge of the spray that splashed at him, the boy returned the fire.

Leaning out over the edge, his brow furrowed with concentration, he pursed his lips and spit.

You are just a river, he seemed to be saying. But I am a boy. And one day I will be a man. And one day I will ride you and tame you and let you carry me where I want to go.

But the river is old, as old as the landscape it shaped, older than the trees, older than the city, older than the settlements that came before the city.

The river has seen many little boys. It rushed past him, carrying the weight of rain and snow, carrying the history of the world in every grain of sand, carrying a thousand rainbows in every drop.

You are just a boy, the river said as it swept by. You will never tame me, not even when you grow up to be a man.

Taking his father’s hand again as they walked away, the child looked back over his shoulder, back at the dragon of water that slipped along its rocky cage.

And spit again.