Early May, the ice just off, birds funneling in from everywhere, woodland wildflowers in profusion, trees popping leaves from buds, and no mosquito or black fly hatch quite yet. Is there a better time in the world to be alive? Or a better place to be than on a wild river or lake? Here's a sampler of all the life coming alive in May from the view of a canoe or on a portage.

Rivers speak to us in so many metaphors. William Least Heat-Moon writes, "A river - with its attendant cascades, eddies, boils, and whirlpools - is the most expressive aspect of a natural landscape, for nothing else moves so far, so broadly, so unceasingly, so demonstrably, and nothing else is so susceptible to personification and so much at the heart of our notions about life and death." We paddle rivers in large part because of what they help us feel. Come listen to selections from some of the world's finest writers sharing their love for rivers.