Once I lived in a house by a river, in a deep narrow valley. The house was dark and damp, the river enticing. A broad lawn, anchored by an ancient white pine, sloped down to the water. Often, I sat by the water and wept.

The sun sank early behind the mountains. The river sank into a running darkness.

Every spring, I watched the ducks—mallards, mergansers—slide along the water with a wake of ducklings. I counted the little handfuls of fluff each day, delighted when they lined up along a fallen log, equally delighted when the mother decided to move on and each duckling slid and belly-flopped into the water, bouncing like a rubber ball.  My cat watched with me. We studied the river’s sheen and constancy and thought ourselves great naturalists. We followed the river swallows dipping, gliding, soaring off. We heard a purring clack-clack-clack and a flash of blue—a kingfisher descending, then gone. We heard the slap of a beaver’s tale.

My cat burbled like the river. Its ruffling and rustling played a light ostinado to our lives.

Contained by its banks, contained by the mountains, the river promised enclosure. It hinted too, at a reaching beyond, a furtherness, with its constant pulsing. Overwhelming its banks in flood, it roared danger, though the water never reached the house; it roared an indifferent taking away. In heat, it pulled itself inward, slowed in its soft gurgling.

When I was a kid, I stayed in the shower till my mother opened the bathroom door to ask me what on earth I was doing in there, lingering so long. “Traveling,” I wanted to say.

Here’s what I was doing: as the shower water sluiced over me, I pretended that I was walking in a great rainy city, going somewhere possibly important. I did not question why I should be naked walking down a street, because in my mind, I wasn’t. I was grown up and on my way to a grownup destination. The rain enclosed and protected me.

Once, I watched my perfect dog plunge into a pond. When she emerged, her elaborate shudder with its sidelong spray seemed like momentary joy.

I never had a dog.

Rivers speak; contain, release, dwindle, push on.

I have not spent much time by the sea, though of course it enters my dreams, as I suspect it does for so many. In my dreams it is night, and I am stretched out upon the surface of the sea, with no memory of arriving there. I gaze upward into the dotted dark that folds in and over itself, like the sea. Then sometimes Neptune’s great hand, soft despite its scales, presses against my back, lifts me upward, water sluicing from me, from his arm, like a sea-borne fountain. He releases me, withdraws into his murky realm. I do not fall but float, held by star threads, and there seems to be no end of floating, of suspension, of the care of the stars, of the sound the sea makes as it breathes. This is a good dream, though I awake with a gasp.

I’ve read about swimming with whales. I’ve thought about touching the sea-smoothed skin, looking into the intelligent eye, imitating the blue-gray glide. I’ve loved dolphins, too, their elegant arching, their intelligent chatter. I’ve wanted to run my hand along their slicked bodies. I can understand why mythic figures rode astride them, taking part in that arcing shape, emerging and disappearing into the sea.In a bright and glowing autumn, when my marriage seemed to be over, when I thought I’d fallen in love with a friend, I walked along a rocky dirt road until I came to a stream. I needed the moving water to counsel or console me. I sat in the grass and fallen leaves by the stream and mourned one love lost and one love unanswered. I’d never felt this excitement or longing, I’d never felt so daring, but my friend insisted we stay only friends.

The stream glinted, winked, rushed on. It said, Yours is a common grief, a small grief. I cannot carry your grief away.

I did not move until the air cooled and dusk gathered me up.

Drought. Fires. Floods. Warming oceans. Devastating hurricanes. Relentless rains. Water saves us, water defies us. Something keeps burning, somethings keeps churning whether we will or no.

Perhaps the earth will be washed clean of us. Once we are gone, water will claim its existence where it wants to be.

Staying in a small country town, I trudged into the harbor of the landscape and came upon a small body of water. The sign said, “Fire Pond—Children’s Fishing Only.” I stood at the edge and watched a bare rhythmic shimmer move through and over the water as the pond repeated its world: birches leaning over as if to drink; larches turning into gold, fall’s alchemy at work; firs stretching, ascending. One sturdy house regarded its reflection; beyond, the brown bear of a ridge slept. A fish disturbed the mirror, briefly, concentric ripples opening, dissolving once more into smoothness. And then, in the liquid sheen, I saw the arrow-aim of the stretch-necked geese, winging their parts in air.

The passages between worlds are manifold.

Martha Graham Wiseman has been an acting student, a dancer, and an editor. She taught English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., until retiring in 2020. Her essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Fish Anthology 2021, Ponder Review, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Under the Sun, The Santa Ana River Review, The Bookends Review, oranges journal (UK), Kestrel, and Map Literary; work is forthcoming from Queen’s Quarterly (Canada). She has also published fiction and poetry.