when you were out of things to say
Mission Creek, Montana A river, sunk deep into the prairie remembers the time I fished in it with my father in a deep Montana evening. Fish swam by in their race towards autumn, but neither of us felt the need to chase them. There were arrowheads that had been lying in the tall grasses, a hundred years of waiting to greet our fingers with their unsure edges, broken backs. The night broke over our shoulders, mine young and his quickly aging, so we returned to the car and left only the river there to remember the solitary evening when Montana had become more than a place, but a sacred breath to take when you were out of things to say, when you were out of things to sanctify. Patricia Schlutt, age 15 Grand Rapids, Michigan Teacher: Rodney Torreson 2010 River of Words Finalist