Trust Your Despair

He looked up, searching, beard glistening, now sacrament, lifted from the torrent that surrounded us. “Listen,” he said, his voice competing with the din, a roar of water and stones. I tried to focus, adjusted my footing, strained sideways, body numb, heaviness a failed anchor. Away from the moment I saw a woman, floating downstream, slipping around rocks like planets, soft focus, beauty revealed, face to the sky, sliding across lifetimes.

“Look,” he said, beckoning me back, grace deferred. - yelling against the roar. “Sometimes the ones you want to see on the other side - catching their breath- dryin' in the sun. Sometimes the rocks afoot slippery, the packs heavy. The man, the horse behind you, cant see the bottom or hear for the sound. But in this water, see, you don’t let go.” He took in the slack - wrapping line elbow to hand , and paused . “The best ones washed away but now we don’t let go.”