An aphorism by James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase and Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists.
James Geary | March 2009 issue
A river flows under my street. A long time ago, it ran on the surface, when this place was an open field, dotted with ponds. Then, somewhere along the line, the river sank. It was diverted into pipes and submerged beneath our roads and homes. We lost track of it. Now we only notice it during heavy rains, when it percolates into people’s basements or bursts its banks and bleeds into the street, turning it once more into a river. “A buried past lives underground,” Dutch psychoanalyst and poet Frans Hiddema wrote. The river is still there, even though we don’t see it. It is still fleet, still flowing. And it knows exactly where it’s going.
James Geary is the author of The World in a Phrase: A History of Aphorisms
.Find more information: www.jamesgeary.com
