“What have I learned about the river, the companion rivers?” I’ve learned rivers are organisms that resemble us humans, that resemble animals; rivers are thinking organisms, and their waters carry a poem if you only look, dip your hand or foot in, wash your face; I became familiar with the names of companion rivers, names that in their own right resonate, that make up a verse: Nida, Koprzywianka, Opatówka, Chodelka, Radomka, Bzura, Skrwa, Wda . . . I found that rivers can rock you to sleep, and in the morning they cooperate with linnets, goldfinches, cormorants to wake the sleepers, inviting them to the day; but at night the river changes its character, becoming thick black lava dusted with the silver of the moon, and if you stare into its surface, you’ll be lost to yourself, the river hypnotizing you, making you lose track of what’s real and what’s not. I also learned the river knows how to get its way, take back land that belongs to it, occupy an old channel, use its own memory, spill over once again into terrain we appropriated as we elbowed our way into the world.

--Małgorzata Lebda (trans. Mira Rosenthal)