Water miracle

  

I walk to the river nearly every day and I have noticed that where I cross over the Kaw River Bridge, the water always flows from west to east. I am coming to the conclusion that gravity is inexorable. If you’ll pardon the obvious, the river Kaw flows from upstream, down. And the rain drops drop down. And then they mingle and the waters flow inexorably down.

But we interrupt the flow. Maybe I am not the only one to think that this, too, is something of a miracle. The city sticks a long straw out into the middle of the river and with pumps and pipes and tanks on towers, they take out and discard from the water what isn’t water from this very stream, mostly, as it flows along the interrupted way. And when I turn the tap at my kitchen sink, the river water splashes down into my glass. And if you haven’t noticed, this happens all over town.

This is perhaps no great drama. But there would be some little commotion if a pipe should break. And if the rain should cease to fall, we would soon dance on the dry streambed and cry out, our arms raised to the sky, until we finally fell down onto the burning sand and the vultures would come and clean our flesh from our bones. And then they, too, would fly away and down.

So I walk to the river to check. Gravity seems to be inexorable. The water a miracle. Our lives dangling down along a thread of water.