Lost Streams

I came where the river

Ran over stones;

My ears knew

An early joy.

And all the waters

Of all the streams

Sang in my veins

That summer day.                                      - Theodore Roethke, The Waking, 1948

My place was carved out of a forest and built on top of five fingers of streams that flow beneath our streets. They are called ‘lost’ streams. I recently came across an environmental report of my place, that includes areas quite a ways out into the lower valley, that has categorized streams as either wild, threatened, endangered, or lost.

There are hundreds of streams in my place. I suppose being at the middlemost area of three large rivers, I should not be surprised. The ones that are lost are those that have been built or paved over but still continue to flow in the subterranean depths beneath neighborhoods. In the early spring and late autumn, the time of heavy rains, several yards, including mine, flood. Being on such a high water table, the rainwater has nowhere to go as the streams are already carrying rainwater from their sources before they dip under the streets.  The streams bubble up in the yards, reminding us of a landscape eclipsed by development.  The streams remember.

There is an anonymous dedication of which I have heard, which breaks my heart:

“listen; the buried stream gurgles its longing to return to daylight and moonlight to nourish ducks, bracken, ferns, salmonberry and you”

It makes me deeply sad to think of my lost streams, like Peter Pan’s lost boys looking for a mother, longing for sunlight and moonlight. I imagine they yearn to be wild. 

The photos are of streams in the area, at a point before they disappear under the streets.