Afon Nant Peris Poem by Brother Jonathan Gardner

The rivulet, though small and easily straddled
is vast and wide, a veritable raging and restless torrent
to the minutiae of creatures that live along its bank,
live in it or under it.

The flowing water is time.
Do you look upstream or downstream?
Downstream represents that past, of days gone by, the old, the familiar and known.
It is an empty plate of cakes, just crumbs, now gone; it is yesterday's meal.

The flowing water is time.
I reckon you look upstream! Most do.
Upstream is unfamiliar. It is tomorrow charging towards us and becoming 'now'.
It isn't redshift; it is blueshift!
It is the future, it is potential, opportunity, a ribband of possibility reaching toward us.
It is the unknown. A challenge. A risk.

Time could be the harbinger of good or of bad,
however we define those words,
and yet Rumi's wisdom of inviting in all those who knock at the door of one's life echo loud.
For in playing host to all, we may accept a benevolent 'guide' from beyond,
and grow in stature.

The flowing water is time.
As I stand motionless and observe, the water flows and yet so do I.
A body that ages.
A mind that thinks.
A heart that beats involuntarily.
A planet that spins. And one that orbits.
A solar system that moves.
Tempus fugit.
Everything is in a state of flux.

And so I, like you, look upstream.
Could this be Afon Nant Peris or even Pishon?
But, I crane my neck and look upstream.
For it is from there that the Spirit calls out to us by name.
He whispers in the desolation, the forest, even in the city.
God's activity is recorded in the past, felt in the present, and reverberates to us from the future.

It is from there that He inhabits
and which, for us, is that other country we heard of long ago,
and to which we journey on.
Yes, the flowing water is time.


[Brother Jonathan Gardner]
Copyright © ®2008, Brother Jonathan Gardner. All rights reserved.

Notes: The Afon Nant Peris, a rivulet, flows along the Llanberis Pass (valley) towards Llanberis in the Northern Wales area of Snowdonia (Yr Wyddfa) . It's an awesome area; a charming and rugged sight especially at dawn or dusk, and such beauty lies only a few metres from the busy road and is so accessible.

Line 12: Redshift/blueshift: For astronomers or physicists in general an object moving away appears slightly red as lightwaves are 'elongated'. Conversely an object coming closer to the observer appears slightly blue as lightwaves are 'compressed'.

Line 17: Rumi also known as Jalā l ad-Dī n Muḥ ammad Rū mī , a muslim mystic,1207-1272

Line 27: Tempus fugit, latin for 'time flies', time goes quickly.

Line 28: 'Everything is in a state of flux', movement/change, as said by Robert Eugene Byrne is a leading American chess player, a Grandmaster, and a chess author.

Line 30: Pishon is a reference to one of the two rivers running through the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2: 11, the Book) , and used here as Afon Nant Peris is a 'heavenly' spectacle.