Have crossed over a lot of rivers lately. The only thing they have in common is they each flow in one direction, though the direction in which each flows is often very different.
If you look at the satellite shot below, you can see both the Detroit River and the St. Clair River, plus connecting lakes.
Some rivers look more like swamps, or creeks. Others, vast waterways deep and fast-flowing. Most big cities in North America seem to have at least one river, if not more, nearby, bordering or channeling right through town. And their uses have changed with time: thanks to automobiles, rivers are obstacles to be crossed over on select bridges, or underneath through tunnels, or across on ferries.
Things to do with rivers or smaller waterways have cool names like riparian, rill, watercourse, rivulet, channel, delta. In writing, visual art, satellite imagery and music, rivers and their smaller equivalents can make characters in their own right. The Mekong Delta springs to mind, meaning poetically in Vietnamese, Nine Dragon River Delta.
Today's Rune: Defense. Believe it or not, the subject of rivers came up on the trip to Austin, maybe because of the Colorado River, the Blanco, the Bosque, the Guadalupe, the Nueces, the San Marcos, the San Antonio River, and so on. Let's not forget the Rio Grande / Río Bravo del Norte. Rivers sort of jump out more into immediate conciousness while traveling.
3 comments:
In America most big cities began on the spot of the river bank where the aboriginal people had been displaced from the summer home. It is the same with the highways and roads. The bigger ones follow the migration paths of the native people.
The most interesting thing about Lake Erie is that it flow south to north in it's rush to the ocean.
Someone on another blog posted recently about the Blue Danube and that made me think of the mythic qualities that so often grow up about rivers and waterways. The Mekong Delta will always have that resonance for me.
The Delaware River reminds me of home. The Haw River I can hear from my porch when ever there is a big rain and the flow is powerful and swift.
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