The Weight of Water

We build structures to hold back the tide, to mark the crossing from one bank to the other. We believe in stone. We believe in iron. We believe that if we anchor ourselves firmly enough, the current will simply pass us by, leaving us untouched and unchanged. But the river has a longer memory than any bridge. It moves in the dark, smoothing the edges of our intentions, turning the solid world into a reflection of itself. We stand on the shore and watch the lights shimmer, pretending they are fixed, pretending we are not also drifting. There is a specific silence that follows the passage of a great weight over water. It is the sound of things settling into their own shadows. Do we ever truly reach the other side, or are we merely suspended between what we were and what the water will eventually claim?

Leonardo Teles has captured this stillness in his image titled Tower Bridge London. The river holds the city as if it were a secret. Does the reflection tell a truer story than the stone?