Light on water

One day, I believe it was a holy day, we floated down the oldest river in the continental US.

What does it mean for a river to be old when the water that flows is always new, and the trees that lean from its banks fall like empires?

What does it mean for a mountain to be old when its forests know nothing but change?

Perhaps the only ancient thing about mountains and rivers is its memories, which it scatters across the minds of anadromous fish, simple-minded water fowl, insects that catch the light of the afternoon sun, and old men who once jumped from high rocks into deep pools, and now

wait all week to watch the pattern of light on water.