I Want For Those Who carry my burdens,

To look around. You are not here,

The birth, the young, the rich, the fop,

The man, the hearse, the town,

Non dear to me.

Air serves with breath.

Objects call and give shape.

Light me in paths by unseen existences dear to me.

Walks the edges!Image result for alley

Window-pierced entrances.

Whose transparent shells might expose

The River

     The River

  By Nathan Rowell

As the sides of the cessna 208 rattled  the hallowed cabin of the small bush plane, James peered out at the desolate peruvian landscape that stretches further than I can decipher.  His decision had been made, knew there was nothing to do but wait. James tries to distract his mind with anything he could think of; 60’s rock and roll, silly baby names, ANYTHING but Jenny. His eyes to blur and grow weak as we begin to cross the Andes. The radiant light of the setting sun begins to hide its beams on the other side of the jagged, snowy peaks. The humming of the plane’s engine begins to dulls out, the tingling smell of smoke begins to fill James’s nostrils and the large, empty cabin of the plane. James awakens from his light slumber and inspects the cabin for a possible fire, but there was no fire so be seen. He then looks through the frosted window of the plane to see the engine smoking. He gets up and runs to the cockpit to find an absence of pilots. James’s mind begins to shut down as he realizes he is in a pilotless bush plane over the Andes thats engine has now malfunctioned. James nervously leaps into the pilot seat and frantically examines the controls: throttle gauge, speedometer, odometer, fuel gauge. James’s eyes widen as he realizes the fuel gauge is empty. All of a sudden, the second engine begins to fail, “we’re going down” he says to himself. The plane is exponentially falling of the sky getting closer and closer to the rigid peaks of South America. Just then, over the horizon, James sees the sillouette of a tree through the orange gleam of an auburn sky. Could this be a forest? Am I in the Amazon? The plane shakes violently as the wings cut through the turbulent air. James grips onto the steering wheel with white knuckles. The last thing he sees is the nose of the plane dive head first into the amazon river. Then, black.

 

James weakly opens his eyes, only to see a stick that had broken through the glass of the cockpit window an inch from his face. He began to regain consciousness and peruse the mangled cockpit. “Where am I?!” James murmurs as he scratches his bruised head. He grips the door handle of the plane and opens it as a rush of river water enters the plane. As James lays on the bank of the river, he can’t help but think of her. His mind ventures to him and his daughter Jenny, driving down the highway. She laughs at a joke he tells her. He thinks of her very first steps as a baby. Their first trip to Disneyland. He remembers the day like it was yesterday; James and Jenny were headed to the store, when a man under the influence t-bones their car and kills Jenny. A tear wanders down James’s face as he recalls the accident. He snaps out of it, he notices that his body in even worse shape than when he was pulled out of the wreck of the car. James slowly gets to his feet and checks his ligaments and realizes he has lost his phone. The Amazonian sunset shimmered through the underbrush of the forest floor. James eerily walks towards the river. “Hello?! Anybody out there?!” no response. Dusks is falling through the forest. James decides he needs to find higher ground to see where he is. The stars are beginning to glimmer as James reaches the top of a hill with a view of jungle that stretches beyond where the naked can see. James decides to go to sleep before he finds a way back to civilization. He wakes up to the sound of jungle birds chirping in the canopies of the forest. He decides that the best way to make it out alive is to follow the river. For many days on end, James follows the river throughout the forest. The forest river twist and turns. James watches the river, sees how its path changes, and all along the way brings life to the surrounding area. “If only I hadn’t gone to that store, We didn’t even need eggs!” James fishes and gathers fruit from the trees all along the way. The thing about a river in a jungle is that the end of it seems like it will never come. Weeks past. James had a lot of time along the way to reflect on his life. Time to reflect on Jenny. Six months had passed since that dreadful accident. He had not let a day go by that he did not blame himself for what happened. One day, as James was Walking along the river, he noticed that a dam had built up around a large part of the river. He realized that although there was a large barrier covering the river, the water still somehow found a way to seep through the cracks of the branches and brambles stuck in the river. James considered how his life was very troubled with his loss, and how he can relate to the damn in his river covering the path through life. As James awoke on the 63rd day of being lost in the Amazon, a whiff of sea air filled his nostrils. “The SEA! There has gotta be civilization of some sort there.” After 74 days of wandering through the Amazon jungle, James had finally found the sea. And as he stepped into the water and felt the salty water against his body, he felt renewed, almost like a flower returning to youth in the spring. For he realized the good in life, that the sun will always rise with a new day full of new beginnings. James felt free, he felt free of the burden of his daughters death, he felt free of all the troubles in his life.

 

Life is like a river. It has twists and turns that we can’t predict, and we may not be able to see the end of it. Life puts branches in our path, it may even dam up our vision or way of life. But our path always will lead us back to the ocean, it will always lead us back to anew.

The End