He wondered what his sorrow was and could not remember. - N. Scott Momaday

The waters tell of time. Always rivers run upon the earth and quench its thirst. Bright water carries our burdens across long distances. Without water we, and all that we know, would wither and die. We measure time by the flow of water as it passes us by. But in truth it is we who pass through time. Once I traveled on a great river though a canyon. The walls of the canyon were so old as to be timeless. There came a sunlit rain, and a double rainbow arched the river. There was mystery and meaning in my passage. I beheld things that others had beheld thousands of years ago. The earth is a place of wonder and beauty.

He was alone and running on. . . . He could see. . . . He was running, and under his breath he began to sing. . . . He had only the words of a song. And he went running on the rise of the song.

You are the dark shape I find
On nights of the spilling moon,
Pale in the pool of heaven. — N. Scott Momaday, from “Revenant” The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 2020)