The River

Location

I grew up on the North St Vrain River up on Longmont Dam Road near Shelly's Cottages.  My family's house was only a few feet away from the water, one of those brilliant baby boomer, post WWII planning jobs.  The sound of the water was always in my ears as a child, in the winter muffled and soothing, in the spring a roaring heart -quickening torrent that invaded my basment bedroom.  You could count on 2 inches on the floor and a move upstairs with mom and dad. The river would redefine the yard, cutting around the ancient pine with its campfire- scarred  base. Half of the yard became icy runoff. There are no words to describe the river in spring after dark. You can always feel the river's presence. I'd walk along the dirt road in the dark into cold pockets, kisses of a mountain stream. In the winter my brother and I would ice skate, in the summer we had water fights and tubed.  I mourned when the new Longmont Dam controlled the river's flow to the point that skateable ice no longer formed and trout were trapped in pools in the summer.  I waded the river, talked to the river, saw whales mouths in the way the water cascades over stones and fairylands in the shallows. I knew the stones, the one like a chair, the sway back one, the skins of the water bugs underneath the river rock and how beautiful the river water enhanced the beauty of the stones. I watched a willow over the course of years break a boulder island asunder. I knew the river so much better than any of the humans I attended school with in Lyons and when I grew up and was ready to give birth to my first child, i asked my mother to send the sound of the river to me. It didn't work. The recording was no substitute.  I came back to Lyons to raise my children , no actually I came back to the river.  Don't we all realise that we are here because of the river?  Why don't we understand that without the river we die? I've always lived outside of town on the edge of this community but my heart flows right through the middle of town. It was carried away a long time ago when I was a child. The health of the river is primary in a dry land , in any land it would be foolish to believe otherwise. I tried to listen to human needs at the CDC meeting tonight but he river was so much louder.