It's Still Life

Brigid’s Diary, 1834, What the River Knows

Episode III – Lyon, The Confluence

At the meeting of the Saône and the Rhône rivers, the surface agreed while the bodies argued, currents swinging between quarrel and agreement, each teaching the other a deeper way to move. It spoke without lifting its voice, smooth as glass where the lamps touched it, and unanswerable underneath.

I watched leaves travel together until the seam took them, and saw how easily calm swings to direction.

Felreil stood with me and said nothing.

The bells from Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon counted the hour, and the mosquitoes stitched their wire-song through it, as if reminding us that patience is also a force.

If a time can look this calm and still mean to take you under, then we will travel as water does —reading the pull, yielding early, and never mistaking the surface for mercy.

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “swing”. Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is authentically my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.