The River Has Roots

by Amal El-Mohtar

It is well known that folk journey into and out of Arcadia, just as it’s well known that people travel into and out of the Levant. But it’s not done regularly, reliably, or particularly safely; one understands that one’s life is about to irrevocably change by having embarked on the journey, by the rigours of the journey itself, and by all the mysteries attendant on arrival. There are lands that are near to us geographically but far from us temporally: London is not Londinium, though it’s built from its bones. There are lands that are near to us temporally but far from us geographically: we can be certain that at this moment, in Italy, someone is sitting down to their breakfast with a newspaper dated roughly the same as ours, though we cannot expect to reach them in time to join them for the meal. When Arcadia overlaps with the lands we know, it takes years to journey into it; when Arcadia is some distance away, it is possible to conceive of it as contemporary. It is always both at a remove and always immediate; always near to hand and very far away.