The River will Flow (Afer Li Po)

I drink wine by the river.
I can barely see it,
and I hear it as in a dream.
Are things as they seem?
My wife is now dead.
Wind rustles the leaves
of a nearby tree.
The leaves fall slowly,
but relentlessly.
What must be, will be.
The river begins as
a quiet mountain stream.
It flows through lush
fields and gentle hills.
But in the end, it is
swallowed by the sea.
That was its true identity.