The changing riverbank

Time is like a river. That's not just a metaphor. If time is impermanence in action, then a river is time played out with soil and water and vegetation. The channel is forever changing, the banks reshaped.

There was a deep water hole gouged out of the riverbed only yelling distance from our front door. Sucker minnows would school there, and the otters and mink would find it to be a fine fishing spot. After this spring flood, however, that hole has been filled with sand. The sloughing bank that was toppling trees and slowly creeping toward the house has stopped advancing. Now the river is sculpting the opposite bank, piling sand into a strange ridge pattern. Beavers are more active this spring than anytime in the past four years, which is how long we've lived here. That's not very long to a river.