In the joyful half-light of dawn,

You bubble up among great white pines

Bathed in sparkling sunlight,

Little impeded by those dark stones

That leave no permanent scars on your water.

I can embrace your width with a single stride,

Yet your spirit is already wider than the sky.

Gentle, modest, clean, pure,

You are yet to display

The anguish and frustration of youth,

When you rage against the constraints of your banks,

Flooding fallow fields and city streets.

The world calls to you, my river.

You are greater than the waters that flow through you.

Your waters are here today and gone tomorrow.

But you, my river, are eternal.

With age, your waters will grow uncertain and apathetic

As they flow to the Delta, then to the sea.

But you, my river, will not grow old.

You are forever, like the stars,

Whose reflections sparkle in your waters.

Today, my river, you are still young,

Even as I grow gray and old

I long to drink the water of your youth.

I will launch a small stick in your headwaters

To imagine its journey through many adventures.

But always this stick, of good Minnesota birch made,

Is a remembrance of our youth together.