Where the River Remembers – a tanka-prose

The river near my childhood home still bends the same way, though everything else has learned to move on. When I stand by its edge now, years later, I realize it has been carrying my silences all along—each unspoken fear, each unreturned goodbye. The water does not ask who I have become. It only asks me to listen.

A breeze passes through the reeds, and I remember small hands once reaching for mine, trusting without question. I remember how love first taught me to be brave, not loud. How it arrived quietly—like moss growing on stone—patient, persistent, alive.

Nature never rushes memory. It lets it soften, dissolve, and return as something kinder. In this moment, I understand that connection does not fade; it changes form. It becomes wind. It becomes water. It becomes the space between two breaths where we still belong to each other.

river bends again—
my reflection learns to hold
what time released
even the passing current
knows where my heart began

#tankaprose