River With No End Has Serenity

Two years ago a song by John Prine gave me a visual in a song. A river with no end. From my view point back then, the river of grief had no end. Fast flowing currents, sharp rocks, smooth boulders-- all brutally hard. Dangerous undertows, ice cold or just cold, no exit, frightening blind corners, no turning back. I expected to be tossed battered and dead into a serene pool at the rapids' end. Tranquility awaits the unwilling traveler. He will arrive---either dead or alive.

The book Grey Owl, perfectly described the final scene. I don't have the exact words but they depicted a traveler thrown from his canoe, struggling against the current, the rocks, the debris, bashed in the violence of water rushing with a purpose. The purpose was to kill slowly at first then quickly with violence and then toss the corpse into a quiet pool of still water. Freshly dead the body would float with a new calm. The only witnesses to the murder were the trees which toward over the river. They would turn a blind eye toward the details. Having seen everything they stood mute. The violence had no effect on their day. The trees saw it all and understood nothing. Had the man lived they would have cared no more or less. The river has no mercy. Trees have no compassion.

Grief is the river. The world I left towers and sways with the winds. Had I fallen from the canoe or chosen to abandon the safety of the vessel, my arrival at the end would have been without my knowledge. I know the canoe is battered. I survived. There is peace. Serenity is the gift.