If I would tell you what a river was like

If you’d never seen one before,

Then I could tell you that it is water

That runs between two shores;

And how it starts with being a spring

And ends with being a sea,

But I am afraid I cannot explain

What a river means to me.

If I could explain silence and strength and song,

Paint it with brown and gold and blue;

Mold peace and heartache into a bed

For this wide river to run on and through;

Then weave a scarf from the moonlight’s beam,

And capture the life-strength of a tree,

Then maybe, just maybe, I could explain

What a river means to me.

Currently for my creative writing class at Payap University, our homework is to write an hour a day. About anything. Today as I sat beside the Mae Ping river, this is one of the things I wrote. 

*Photo credits: Melissa Weber