The Weight of Petals

We leave things behind. A stone placed on a cairn, a name carved into bark, a handful of stems offered to the current. We do this because the water does not stop. It moves with a cold, indifferent patience, carving the earth into shapes we can barely recognize. To place something fragile in the path of that movement is an act of defiance. It is a way of saying that we were here, even if the water will eventually take what we have given. The flowers will bruise. The stems will fray. They will become part of the silt, part of the riverbed, part of the long, slow journey toward the sea. We watch them drift, hoping that the act of letting go is enough to anchor us to the moment. Does the river know what it carries, or is it only the weight of the water that matters?

Kari Cvar has captured this stillness in her image titled Texas Creek Flowers. It reminds me that beauty is often found in what we choose to surrender to the wild. Can you hear the water moving beneath the petals?