The human soul does not merely hunger for beauty, John O’Donohue, the Irish poet, believed; we feel most alive in the presence of what is beautiful. It returns us often in fleeting but sustaining moments, he said, to our highest selves. This early morning impression along the Androscoggin River in the Great North Woods is one of those fleeting but sustaining moments that touches our highest selves and awakens us to the presence of God.