Langston Speaks of Rivers

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.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

~Langston Hughes
1902-1967

***
The picture above is of the Columbia River from Astoria, Oregon, where I grew up. When I read this poem by Langston Hughes many years ago, it touched something within me.

I, too, have known rivers - ancient and dusky rivers.

My native ancestors in Alaska fished on the Bering Sea and on inlets off the Aleutian chain. My father went to sea as a teenager, and later worked on the Columbia River as a bar pilot. My brother was a commercial fisherman and is now a tugboat operator on this river.

Every morning when I woke as a child I turned to the window to check the weather on the Columbia. I remember clearly the sound of foghorns when visibility was low, and the sounds of ships sounding their horns, signaling for pilots. I remember the fishy fragrance of river water, especially when our dogs would come back from swimming in the river. I remember riding the ferry across the Columbia, and later, watching the big bridge being built. I remember going to work with my dad, and can clearly imagine the sounds of water lapping, and the smell of cigar smoke in the cabin of the pilot boat. I remember people - friends and family - who died on the Columbia River. The memory of scattering my dad's ashes from the pilot boat on the Columbia River sand bar a few years ago is still very vivid.

I now live near a smaller river, the Umpqua, that ambles through the county near my home. I love my daily drive along the Umpqua, and I love standing on its shores, skipping stones, inhaling the fragrance, and watching the waters flow. With my family I have loved hiking alongside rivers, and swimming, fishing, and rafting in the waters.

Today I am mesmerized by the reflections of autumn trees on the Umpqua river, and by sunlight sparkling on its jade colored current in the late afternoon.

My connection to rivers is primordial - older than the flow of blood in my human veins.
My soul, too, has grown deep like the rivers.