The world is bursting with vibrance, vines laden with grapes the color of royalty, skies the colors of watercolor paints, pumpkins the color of frost on my car’s windshield, corn tassels the color of overripe apricots.

 And there’s the colors of school; bubblegum pink erasers, oh so bright lunch boxes piled on tables, newly sharpened yellow pencils, brown molasses cookies and blue bags of chips. School is a veritable rainbow. 

 As I drive there every morning, the acrid sting of the newly blackened fields assault my nostrils. Why, in the middle of all this loveliness, do we have fields of charcoal? 

 The garden’s dying. My dahlias droop pathetically and only stumps are left in memory of the sunflowers. The cold lasts longer in the morning and arrives earlier in the evening. The birds are leaving in flocks, braving the wind together. Because the wind is definitely here, a whistling creature that commands one’s respect. 

 Again I’m struck with the irony. How can the going out be so painfully beautiful? How can a sunset splash radiance over the horizon right before the darkness? How can the trees flame with color right before they drop their leaves in the dirt? 

 Why do rivers run in the valleys? 

The walls of the canyon are pretty steep. When you’re in the bottom, looking up, it’s hard to imagine a world above. Sometimes you’re  in the canyon for such a long time you forget there even is one. 

 Sometimes, when each night is longer than the one before, you stand in the dark river below and wait for the first rays of light to hit your face. But sometimes you forget what the light feels like. It’s hard to remember the flowers growing on the banks when you can’t see them. 

 

 You stand in the river, because rivers run in valleys, and you happen to be in a valley. And sometimes, when the light hits the water just right, it sparkles like a world on fire, and the beauty takes your breath away. 

 Do you see the irony? The beauty is not in spite of the dying. The dying is the beauty. Rivers run in the valleys. 

 The lyrics to this song hit deep. 

Find me in the river. 

Find me on my knees. 

I’ve walked against the water. 

Now I’m waiting, if you please. 

We’ve longed to see the roses,

But never felt the thorns, 

And bought our pretty crowns,

But never paid the price. 

We didn’t count on suffering. 

We didn’t count on pain. 

But if the blessing’s in the valley,

In the river I will wait. 

Find me in the river. 

Find me there.

Find me on my knees, with my soul laid bare.*

*https://music.apple.com/us/album/find-me-in-the-river-feat-kj-apa-jj-heller/1500806002?i=1500806347