RJ--other waters--their ways

Sophie watched the window in the oblique corner carefully as she placed her signs at just the right angle. She replaced the signs in this window often--not as frequently as the signs directed to the evil soul sucking credit card company, but still, often. "Anna, come home" was always at the top.

Other messages included memories of the times they rafted on the Arkansas, swirling through the rapids. Anna had held on to Sophie for dear life, straining from the frigid water. Or the time they drove back east and saw the Mississippi, and laughed at the live oaks lapping the waves. Or the stories of the O Ise San, the sacred river in Japan, the one that ran clear with the scaled gold of koi and greying silver of ancient stones.

She would go in and rearrange the enticing sugar river for Anna's path home, folding a paper fan at a more inviting angle, leading the cranes in a v that Anna could join.

Yuki had told her once about the ways of ghosts. They are lost only because no one has bothered to show them the path home. Take the time to make a proper path, one delicate and sweet enough to transcend the boundaries across the worlds. Then and only then will the ghosts find their way back into the flesh, will the dying breathe again with the pulse of the living.

"How do you know they will listen?" Sophie had asked at the time.

Yuki had shrugged. "You don't."

dowsers navigate / by the principle / water finds / ways to water / souls find / their ways / to other souls

if there are / other waters / we can not / know them / all we see / in rivers / is their presence