The Human River

The human river
Veins in flesh and veins in earth
Are one in the same

What do people have in common with rivers? If the earth were a person, the river would be the veins bringing blood from the heart to the rest of the body. A river brings life from uninhabitable highlands to the lowlands we live in. Rivers are the veins of the earth. Our lives would not be possible without these waterways.

The Parts of a River

Water passes through many elements on its journey along a river. Waterfalls and tributaries near the top of a mountain glacier to erosion banks and floodplains near the mouth, to name only a few parts. Each part of the river not only has beauty, but function.

River Pollution

When I lived in the big city I used to walk along the watershed. Its clean and clear composition meandered from a moraine about 80 kilometres north of the city through all kinds of farmland, industrial parks, and sewage plants till it was a stinky, sludgy green when it reached the lake downtown. Our lives are threatened by the pollution of rivers.

Human Relationship with Nature & Rivers

This concept of the connection between humans and rivers is explored deeply through the struggle of a grumpy old man and a young nurse to clean up their local river in the fiction novella The River Rebirth. Check it out on Kobo today.