I Considered My Life And It Too Was A River

clear,

unscaleable ahead

rise the mountains

of instead

from whose cold,

cascading streams

none may drink

except in dreams

--w.h. auden

Yes Siddhartha, he said.
Is this what you mean:
that the river is in
all places at once,
at its source and
where it flows
into the sea,
at the waterfall,
at the ferry,
at the rapids,
in the ocean,
in the mountains,
everywhere at once,
so for the river there is
only the present moment
and not the shadow
of the future?

It is, Siddhartha said.
And once I learned this
I considered my life,
and it too was a river,
and the boy Siddhartha
was separated from
the man Siddhartha
and the graybeard Siddhartha
only by shadows,
not by real things.
Nothing was, nothing will be;
everything is,
everything has being
and presence.

--Hermann Hesse

COTTONWOOD CANYON
CHEYAVA FALLS
GCNP : ROARING SPRINGS
ROYAL ARCH CREEK
LOWER RIBBON FALLS
ELVES CHASM