PRELUDE - We shall sit together by the river, beneath the summer trees. You will smile soon; the warmth of sunlight glows red upon your throat. Falling light leads you gently over the brook, where leaves will someday know their only future, folded in water, as life passes in a downward look. The willows and reeds ramble through tempered streams, the rush and reach of branches and sun-sleek flutterings; you will laugh and speak of the worthlessness of dreams, for everyone has them. Shadows of water, of ripples and feathered wings. And we are not holding hands, we are holding hands no more. You pass on along the river.