The River That Does Not Speak

The water moves, but the sound is muffled. It is as if the air itself has grown heavy, thick with the weight of things left unsaid. In the deep cold, the river does not rush; it merely persists. There is a particular kind of patience in a landscape that has been erased by white. It is not a void, but a pause. We spend our lives trying to fill the gaps, to name the trees, to measure the depth of the current. We are afraid of the silence. We think that if we stop talking, we will cease to exist. But the river does not need a name to flow. The frost does not need an audience to settle upon the branch. When the world turns gray and the edges blur, we are finally allowed to stop reaching. We are left with only the cold, and the truth of our own breath. What remains when the noise finally stops?

Tisha Clinkenbeard has captured this stillness in her work titled Clark Fork River in the Snow. It is a quiet place to rest for a moment, is it not?