He sometimes wondered if he had become so acquainted with sorrow and loneliness that he thought his purpose was to use up the last of his words, to push beyond into the undiscovered country.

To leave language behind for the first time in 30,000 years, devolving into a free spirit like the raven, giving one last, inhuman, cry as a completion, a final letting go.

And then to push against the air with huge, black wings, to climb into the first golden light of morning and head for the far mountains. A new quest, a new mystery, riding on the invisible wind into the rising sun, climbing to the headwaters of the mother of rivers. And thereby to the mother of all waters.

But as had happened so often, he found he was wrong. The headwaters was underwhelming, at first glance. A trillion soft, quiet droplets from melting snow, infused with the patience of the spirit that moved throughout creation, slowly merging, surrendering, falling faster and faster, becoming something new with each click of time.

Letting go is both end and beginning, he realized. How foolish he’d been. He’d been like a wave fighting all of the others, when all along they were all essential pieces of the same ocean.