Ode to Rivier de Amstel | My beautiful, peaceful Amstel

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My beautiful, peaceful Amstel,

How humbly you left your wavy hair on the cold shoulders of the earth. How silently you accept the color of the sky in every hour and season, the shapes and silhouettes of buildings, houses and people, as they are.

And you are always moving yet still. Always awake and with a smile on your white lips. Like a mother who doesn't want to blame anyone for her insomnia.

How calmly you surrendered to being a river, without any fear of dams nor seas, without any shame of reflection, reflection. How beautiful you are when you let your broad chest and soft drops shine through the sun or let them dance carefree in the rain. How beautiful you are because you don't even know you are beautiful.

In the first days I met you, I realized that every time I looked at you, you looked back. You always see me. You never look away and you always have a gentle smile hidden between your cold drops. Even for those who cut your delicate skin with their boats. Also to those who turn away in the cold weather, pull their hats over their heads and walk past you so indifferently and hastily that it is as if you were dead.

In the first days of getting to know you, I couldn't believe there was so much indifference toward you, your presence and your beauty. I couldn't believe that so many people walked past you so quickly, talked beside you, ate, drank, worked, biked, tied their days and nights together without once stopping to look at you.

Still I wonder, every time I see you, why don't we sometimes stop to sink, drown in the beauty of your drops, filled with the purple summer sunset? Why don't we dedicate one day of the year to you? To cherish your existence? To do nothing but look at you, feel you, hear you?

Why don't we create thousands of poems and stories about all the beauty you inject into the veins of the city? Why don't we listen to you, to the words of the city's oldest watchman, from history? Why don't we let our loneliness dissolve into yours? Why don't we worship you, instead of time? Aren't you the most beautiful imprint and symbol of time, movement, past, future, eternity?

Why do people think of this city, even named after you, not of you, but of sugar, alcohol and weed stores? Not of ongoing, abundant beauty, but of a few grams of fleeting pleasures? While you, like a humble bride, with your quiet, slow footsteps, adorn the whole city with your beauty and hold your velvet arms wide open to embrace and embrace all colors, shades and images.

Sholeh Rezazadeh