The Long River

The river takes the long way because the river is not in a hurry. Somewhere along its bend a fire is going, tended by no one in particular, warming a stretch of evening that has not yet decided to end. The sloth has found the exact branch the sloth was looking for. Smoke rises in the shape of a thought that almost finished itself. The trail does not lead anywhere — it just continues, the way trails do when nobody asks them to perform. A small reminder that the wilderness has been running on its own schedule for a very long time, and has never once apologized for it.