Expectation’s Dam: A Seasonal Journey

Spring — The Promise (Hope and opening)

Why, I wonder,

do we build these dams

upon love’s flowing river —

walls that clutch and bind,

shaping streams into trickles,

folding open arms into chains?

A dam across the flowing love.

In Spring, the river runs wild,

bright with promise, flush with bloom,

the air sweet with fresh hopes—

we plant seeds in fertile soil,

but even as buds unfurl,

we clutch too tightly to the roots,

fearing the rain might wash them away.

Tender green tendrils reach,

yet we bind them with unseen threads—

expectations like winter’s chill,

slow to thaw, slow to trust,

and so the river’s song

is muffled beneath the frost.

---

Summer — The Heat (Intensity & passion)

A dam across the flowing love.

Summer comes with blazing skies,

river swells with passion’s flood,

thunder rolling, heartbeats quickened,

sunlight pouring gold and fire.

But dams built in timid fear

crack and groan beneath the weight—

the heat of unmet desires,

the strain of silent words,

turning laughter into drought,

thirsting for what never was spoken.

Between us, the water steams,

wild currents trapped by stone and hope,

as shadows stretch in the lengthening day,

and the river longs to break free.

---

Autumn — The Withering (decay & reflection)

A dam across the flowing love.

Leaves fall like soft regrets,

rust and amber drifting down,

the river slows, chilled and weary,

carrying debris of dreams unfulfilled.

Expectations wither like the fields,

their harvest lost to bitter winds,

and the dam, once a fortress,

crumbles quietly beneath the weight

of all the things we never dared,

the silences that built a wall.

Between the banks, the muddy flood

swells with pain, and once-clear waters

turn opaque with sorrow’s stain.

---

Winter — The Stillness (Stillness & loss)

A dam across the flowing love.

Now winter holds the river tight,

a frozen mirror cracked and sharp,

where once was song, only silence lies—

expectations buried deep in ice.

We stand apart on brittle shores,

faces turned to biting winds,

hearts heavy with the weight of loss,

and the cold bite of “what might have been.”

Yet beneath the ice, a pulse remains—

a trembling hope, a whispered prayer,

that spring will come to melt the dam,

to loosen chains, to let love flow again.

---

Epilogue — The River’s Song Renewed

Why, I wonder still,

do we build these dams?

But now I see—

even broken rivers find their way,

through cracks and crevices of pain,

to dance again beneath open skies.

And maybe love is less about holding tight,

more about trusting the flood,

to carry us forward—

into the wild, uncharted sea.

Why, I wonder still,

do we build these dams—

these walls of expectation,

these silent chains of fear?

But now I see with clearer eyes,

the river, though scarred and weary,

never truly ceases its song.

It finds the smallest cracks,

the tender fractures of our hearts,

and whispers in liquid tongues,

“Flow free, flow wild, flow home.”

Love is less a fortress held tight,

and more the ancient dance of tides—

the rise and fall, the push and pull,

the endless journey to the sea.

To love is to trust the flood,

to brave the breaking of the banks,

to let go of the fragile dam,

and plunge into the deep unknown.

For even broken rivers

carry life, carry hope, carry dreams—

and when the ice begins to thaw,

and springtime sings her gentle hymn,

the river runs anew—

brighter, freer, unconfined,

a song of endless becoming,

a promise to the waiting earth.

So let the dam crumble,

let the silence break—

for in surrender lies

the true strength of the river.

And in the flow of love,

may we find ourselves again,

not bound by expectation’s hold,

but carried forward on the waters of grace—

wild, uncharted, free.

A dam across the flowing love

may one day crumble,

and the river will run free.