It Just Keeps Rollin'

 

Constellations of leaves fell this morning, where they joined a steady flow downriver.  The peak of fall foliage has past, and while colors persist, many bare branches now etch the sky. With the rain, sediment from a thousand upstream twists and turns darkens the river, turning yesterday's clarity into near murk.  

Tributaries add to the eroding work of the Ottauquechee. One map shows 14 streams joining it between the Middle Bridge and Taftsville.  It empties out as one of 14 Vermont branches big enough to be named a tributary to the Connecticut, the Mississippi of New England.

The song, "Ole Man River" has been coming to me as I wonder what is like to be the Ottauquechee.

One line that stays with me: "It just keeps rollin'."  Whether we watch it or not, the water flows, day and night, month by month, year by year, century by century, millenium by millenium.  The river did have a birth and, left alone, will come to an end in its own time, but on no scale we can ever experience.