From high in the cloud-scraping peaks it emerges

A thousand small trickles that dance in the sun

Gathering strength with each passing second

It whispers then roars on it's long downhill run

Carving through granite and sandstone alike

Over thousands of years none can halt it’s descent

Since before any man saw it dance through the meadows

Long before the Great Plains heard the Cheyenne’s lament

Since the dawn of the ranges that reach toward the stars

It has wound through the land in the warm springtime winds

Shaping and carving with an infinite grace

The caves and the canyons, the oxbows and bends

Down through the Aspen and tall Ponderosa

Unhindered, unstoppable earth-force sublime

Flexing strong, liquid sinews and leaping from cliffs

Unmindful of darkness or sunlight or time

Great river of life in the heart of the West

In so many tongues they have given you names

Acknowledging nothing, neither nature nor man

You have seen ice escarpments and forests in flames

Your long journey down to the great heaving sea

Has been witnessed through eons by all things that live

Knowing that with all of your sound and your fury

It is beauty and courage and life that you give

Oh river of beauty, great river of life

We thank you for joy and for courage and strength

Thanks for the hearts you have changed in your run

And the souls you have touched in your thousand mile length

When the sun sets at last and the cool breezes stir

We find you have blessed us and ended our strife

And I'm thankful to spend just a moment in time

Reaching out with my heart to the River of Life

River of Life

Photo by Gateway Kid aka Glen Bishard

©2011