The River Has Roots

by Amal El-Mohtar

The river may conjugate everything it touches, but the willows translate its grammar into their growth, and hold it slow and steady in their bark.

But that is the nature of grammar—it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will.

there are always things lost in translation, and curious things gained.

Their voice made Esther think of weather, of winter, of woodsmoke: something cold but bright, burning and fragrant, curling into the air before vanishing.

I shaped it from the space between seven stars and strung it with silk spun from their light.

She couldn’t put words to the look on Rin’s face. She only knew, very sharply and deeply, that she wanted to go on being the cause of it.

If that word keeps chasing me down perhaps it has something important to tell me.”