What the river said

This rock is a tablet on which the river tells its story —- flood and drought, freeze and thaw, motion and stillness, high water and low, the laplaplap of winter, the rage and surge of spring. The cracks tell a chapter of brutal winter. Before the rains ceased and snowmelt grew rarer, the river was always here to pound at this monolith from behind, swirl and eddy round the front, remove layer on layer on layer of stone. Now the rock rests like an ancient beast on dry stones, the river a distant memory.