Things lost, things lost . . .
. . . Things she had lost in the river: five shoes. Three lenses. A watch. A scarf. A small fortune. Her footing. Her favourite screwdriver. A tin of fruit. A tin of fish. Two gold fillings.
Things she had found in the river: purple stones, sheep bones. A leaf gone through to the veins. An oily rainbow. A piece of copperplate. Blue eggs floating in a nest. Fertiliser. Five oars. An upturned canoe.
Things she loved about the river: its endlessness. Its silvers and rusts. Its babbling that sounded like an old friend.
Things she hated about the river: its rushing. Its endless rushing.
Things she loved about the river: the cold in your teeth like biting on ice cream. The way the water was smooth one minute and the next minute pleated like the top of a curtain.
Things she hated about the river: how it could never make up its mind.
Things she had found in the river: a drowned kingfisher. A tripod. Salmon shouldering against the current. A newly hatched dragonfly drying out its wings, bright as a carnival.
Things she couldn’t stand about the river: its bloody-mindedness. How it churned everything up. How it reeled you in. How it reeled you in and didn’t let go.
Things she could tolerate about the river: how it rose up in rain and shrank back down in good weather.
Things she had lost in the river: years and years and years.
Things she had found in it: warm pools. Peace. Miles of meshed and mossy roots.