Do rivers run with emotions? We wonder. Novelist Alan Furst places a protagonist, Carlo Weisz, by the Seine, "All his life he'd gazed at rivers, from London's Thames to Budapest's Danube, with the Arno, the Tiber, and the Grand Canal of Venice in between, but the Seine was queen of the poetic rivers, to Weisz it was. Restless and melancholy, or soft and slow, depending on the mood of the river, or his. That night it was black, dappled with rain, and running high on its banks, just beneath the lower quay. What shall I do? he wondered, leaning on a parapet made for leaning, staring at the river as though it would answer. Why not try running down to the sea? Suits me."
The last post spoke to the river as divine, this one to the river as human.
On the plane of what can be seen, twenty-four mallards clustered by the Ottauquechee's left bank this morning, away from the main current, dipping their beaks and heads in the water, having breakfast. They seemed happy.
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