River of Memories

I am the river.
I do not sleep.
I do not forget.

I cradle the world in my curves,
carry the weight of footsteps pressed into mud,
and speak in whispers that only the wind dares to translate.
I remember the girl who bent to touch my surface,
her fingers trembling like frightened birds.
I held her reflection long after she left,
twisting it into silver threads
that lingered like unfinished lullabies.

The old man came to my banks every evening.
He spoke to me of love lost and roads untraveled,
and I listened, weaving his words into my currents.
Sometimes I ripple in answer,
sometimes I hold still
so he can see the shape of his own longing
mirror back to him in my dark water.

Children laugh upon my back,
skipping stones that jump like sparks.
I chase them downstream,
catch their echoes in eddies and whirlpools,
and watch them float like fragile lanterns,
glowing for a moment,
then carried gently beyond the horizon.

I have known storms.
I have felt fury,
shouts hurled into my belly,
tears that cut deep trenches in my banks.
I absorb them all.
I turn anger into currents,
pain into ripple,
regret into soft silt
that nourishes the roots of every tree
that bends over my shoulders.

Sometimes, travelers kneel and think me empty.
I am not.
I carry the bride whose veil caught on reeds,
her whispered vows drifting in my flow.
I carry the soldier who wept silently,
letting memories sail like tiny paper boats.
I carry the child whose laughter rang across summer,
and the mother whose soft songs still cling to reeds at dusk.

I speak to them.
I murmur their names beneath bridges,
curl around their ankles in moonlight,
nudge their reflections,
tell them: “I remember.
You are never gone.
I carry you.”

Even the moments they forget,
I keep.
The sighs, the glances, the words
that evaporated from memory—
I bind them into light and shadow,
curl them into whirlpools and eddies,
and they live in me,
as living as the water itself.

I am patient.
I am eternal.
I am the keeper of all fleeting time,
the quiet witness to love, loss, hope, and fear.
Lean close, and I will speak to you,
not in language,
but in shimmer, in flow, in pulse.
Listen, and you will hear
the lives of a thousand souls
folding gently into mine,
a river that remembers,
a river that never lets go.

- Khushi Kaul