Xiaofan

But out of all the secrets of the river, he saw only one today, and it touched his soul. He saw that this water ran and ran incessantly, and nevertheless was always there at all times, the same and yet new every moment! The one who grasped this and understood this was great! He did not understand and grasp it, but felt some inkling of it stirring,

The Brythonic word for ‘ford’, which barely survives in names, was ritu – as in Anderitum, the Roman fort (and ford) at Pevensey in Sussex; and in Penrith in Cumbria.

She could feel the whispers in her chest, could hear them in her mind. When she was a child, before the war, before the river, her parents spoke to each other in Yiddish, a language they didn’t share with her. This was how the river felt to her—a language that soothed her, a constant presence, but one she barely understood.