Singing to the River

A year ago I was in Sarawak, late at night and sleeping in a forest hut next to a river. I sound from up river wafted down. I thought it was a loud cicada that roused me. But as I turned in my sleep and the bamboo flooring creaked the sound grew louder and changed tuned. It turned into a kind of chanting. Curious, I woke up and walked barefoot up the stony stream. I reached a forest clearing with some more huts, one lit up by candle glow. I climbed the hardwood stairs of a forest hut and was ushered in. An old man was singing and chatting. After I came in, he motioned for a boy, someone I would later find out to be his son, to join him. Their melodic voices wafted through the forest hut and mixed with the sounds of the night. Sometime later, other people joined in, and the house became alive and mixed with song. I woke up with light streaming through the hut. I thought my memory had been a dream but then I realized that the boy was sleeping next to me. That memory has stayed with me. Until it happened again. But this time, I was several hundred kilometers away, in another Bornean forest. I was working in a community where just three families lived. One afternoon I found this lone boy, the only boy in the community, perched high on a rock. He was singing. I sat down nearby and just watched him. When he finally saw me, he smiled, and his singing grew louder. I made this one image. Later that night, people I stayed with told me he was singing to the river. When walking well trodden paths alone in the forest, sometimes, and I catch an unfamiliar sound, I sometimes wonder, is someone singing to the forest? Or perhaps the river?