Pause.

 

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

 

Langston Hughes. “The Negro Speaks Of Rivers”.

The whole of life has a power to soften and open us against our will, to
irrigate our spirits, and in those moments, we discover that tears, the water
from within, are a common blood, mysterious and clear. We may speak
different languages and live very different lives, but when that deep water
swells to the surface, it pulls us to each other.

Mark Nepo. “The Book of Awakening.”