Two Rivers
Two Rivers
The Colorado River is extremely important to those of us living in the western U.S. It’s a big river, but nothing like the visual impact you get from the Mississippi. I love to spend time along different stretches of the Colorado, and looking at it, I’m always amazed at how 40 million people are dependent on the water flowing through this watershed. After reading Aldo Leopold’s 1922 account of the vast marshy delta where the Colorado met the Gulf of California, my heart broke. There was so much lost when we started to dam and divert this mighty river. Now, it doesn’t even reach the sea. I’m hopeful for the efforts to restore the Colorado River Delta.
Two Rivers is printed in black and blue ink on Rives BFK printmaking paper and painted with gold watercolor highlights. It is an edition of 20 prints. The image is 11 x 14 inches and the paper is 15 x 18 inches.
Two Rivers
There is a place at the edge of the world
where two rivers begin.
One flows up into the sky,
pale, glittering stars streaming across the night.
The other river starts
as a trickle of melted snow,
and builds into this powerful force.
Through the darkness, a wet murmur ripples,
talking of rocks,
and rain,
and otters,
and fish.
The water travels long miles
under the river of stars,
and we take it for our fields,
our parks,
our kitchens,
and our cities,
leaving nothing.
There is no more murmur,
nowhere left for a heron to hunt.
At the other edge of the world,
where the two rivers should meet,
there is only one left.
And the stars fall silently onto sand.