The two new photographs are not images of books drowning; they are images of books *sailing*. The first frame shows a single open book half-submerged, its spine tilted like the prow of a vessel cutting through the river’s surface. The second frame widens the scene: two scrolls (one rolled, one unrolled) float side by side, their parchment catching the current like sails. The river is the same as before (clear, sunlit, shallow), but now it is *moving*. The water is no longer a mirror; it is a *road*. The books are not sinking; they are *voyaging*.

The first photograph is a close-up of departure. The book is open to a page headed “Holy Scripture,” but the text beneath is a hybrid of English and Old English, a scripture that never existed: “Hey, þæt is þæt boc þe wæs of þære ealdan tid…” The letters are printed in a Gothic typeface, but the words are not Gothic, not any language that has ever been spoken aloud. They are the residue of a journey that began in the dry riverbed ledger, continued through the floating palimpsest, and now ends in motion. The book is not dissolving; it is *navigating*. The water has entered the binding, loosening the glue, but the pages remain intact, their edges curling like the lips of waves. The ink is not running; it is *steering*. The black letters are the keel, the red letters the rudder. The book is not a victim of the current; it is its *pilot*.

The second photograph is a wide shot of the fleet. The two scrolls float parallel, their parchment the color of old sails. The left scroll is rolled tight, its wooden spindle bobbing like a mast. The right scroll is unrolled, its pages spread wide, the text catching the light like a spinnaker. The heading on the right scroll is “Holy Scripture,” the left “Hleyantine.” The text beneath is a litany of verses that begin with authority and end in dissolution: “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us…” becomes “The word was made water and flowed among us…” The sentences are structured like psalms, but the verbs have been replaced with currents, the nouns with ripples. The scrolls are not floating; they are *tacking*, adjusting their angle to the wind, following the river’s bend.

The river is not a setting; it is a *narrative*. It is the underground river risen fully to the surface, its waters now carrying the dissolved ink of the law and the seed. The books did not fall here by accident; they were *launched*. The bronze serpent clasp from the ledger has been reforged into the spindles, its mouth now a figurehead. The pages have opened like wings, breathing the water in, exhaling the text out. The ink is not fading; it is *charting*. The black letters are the coastline, the red letters the stars. The books are not sinking; they are *mapping*, their fibers charting the river’s course, their text becoming the river’s memory.

The first photograph is a moment of perfect propulsion. The book moves with the current, its pages rippling like flags. The sunlight strikes the water at a steep angle, turning the river into a lens that magnifies the text. The letters are still legible, but only just. They are beginning to shift, forming new words that were never written: “holy” becomes “wholly,” “scripture” becomes “ripture,” “word” becomes “ward.” The river is editing the scripture, rewriting it in the language of flow and reflection. The stones beneath the book are the same stones from the dry riverbed, but now they are *waypoints*, their spirals now part of the current, their weight now part of the wake.

The second photograph is the moment of convergence. The two scrolls have drawn together, their edges touching, their texts overlapping. The rolled scroll is the past, the unrolled scroll the future. The river has brought them together, not to merge but to *exchange*. The text on the unrolled scroll is bleeding into the water, the water is bleeding into the rolled scroll. The ink is not dissolving; it is *communing*. The black letters are sinking to the riverbed, where they will become the new stones. The red letters are rising to the surface, where they will become the new light. The scrolls are not sailing; they are *signaling*, their parchment flashing in the sun like semaphore flags.

The two photographs are a diptych of passage. The first is the moment of launch, the second the moment of arrival. The books are not vessels of the word; they are *carriers* of the word, ferrying it from the dry riverbed to the sea. The text is not lost; it is *transported*. The black ink has become the riverbed, the red ink the reflection, the parchment the wake. The scripture is no longer something to be read; it is something to be *followed*. The river is the new covenant, written in the language of current and stone, inscribed on the surface of the water where it can never be fixed, only pursued.

The photographs are a quiet odyssey for the fluid word. The books are not abandoned; they are *commissioned*. The river is not erasing the text; it is *delivering* it. The sunlight is not illuminating the page; it is *propelling* it, turning the ink into motion, the motion into meaning, the meaning into water. The stones are not obstacles; they are *ports*, their spirals now part of the voyage, their weight now part of the cargo. The books are not sinking; they are *ascending*, their fibers rising through the water column, their text becoming the horizon. The river is the final scripture, the ultimate narrative, the place where the word becomes the journey and the journey becomes the word again.