I was taking a photo of the river, swollen by all the recent rain and snow, when a train happened to pass. Only afterwards I realised how appropriate that is, for this blog, RiverTrain. It is named after the Sava river, when I was travelling by train from Ljubljana to Zagreb in spring, and the train followed the curves of the river so devotedly. Rivers have to be allowed to follow their own course, a living water course. That’s why I feel sad to see canalised rivers, their constricted lives. Rivers too, need freedom to follow their own way, pursue their own lives and determine where to turn, where to change direction, make their own choices.
Who could know better than rivers where to flow, where to pick up speed passing between rocks and boulders, hurtling through narrow canyons, foaming white, and spreading out and lingering in plains. Their plans do not include getting somewhere by the fastest route, the most direct way. Rivers are just like people. No-one wants to be imprisoned according to someone else’s idea of what is best. For rivers, it is the contrasts, the exchanges, the variety of landscapes and river residents, birds, small mammals, plants, it’s all about the journey, and the present. 
It’s snowing. Again
frozen unmelted areas
are covered over
in descending white. Another layer.
Winter loves us.
Time – clusters like the starlings
round the bird table –
on the tops of trees –
I gather damp twigs,
dry them by the fire,
chop logs.
Thick time is a way of keeping warm.
Starlings line up
in rows along the wire –
morse code of dots,
and gaps of dashes.
Then they drop
into the white sky
like the ending of a song.
There’s still joy here,
the woodpecker –
visiting and vanishing.
Piano music drops its notes
like falling birds
like snow.
Comments
Those snowy landscape photographs are sublime.