Water is such a simple thing, just H2O, for most of us always there to drink or use for washing.  We are used to a world with rivers and oceans, with rain and snow, but without water there would be no life on this planet.  There used to be water on Mars, leaving behind dried river systems, but now we are the only planet that we know of with water, with life.  70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water, and 60% of our bodies consists of water.  Water is home to 78% of our animal life. 

Water is precious, yet many areas now suffer from a shortage of water, and worldwide we have problems of pollution.  Today, when you have a drink or a shower, when you walk in the rain or visit a river, give thanks.

Water

Water falls in intimate, clinging caresses,
shape shifting to cover each surface
like words
so you don’t notice how heavy it is
when lying pooled and still
(‘though always ready to tip and slide
like mercury,
like something alive),
singing the song of the oceans inside our bodies,
carrying our blood, our tears, our heat;
or out there holding
the weight of the world and its moon
in a courtship flow of dance.

Gathered
from the air as rain,
from the ground as seeping, splashing springs,
from our bodies and houses and works as waste,
flowing from one to another in anonymity,
transferring allegiance and load
then starting all over again
as if virgin, as essence of pure,
as source of cleansing.

Take me to your drink,
to your magic of everywhere invisible power
(except the oceans
where we see you storm and spray
and lift liners, and smooth sand,
and know that underneath you
tickle the tongues of mussels
and feather the fins of fish).

Take me to the fullness of holding
in wet dissolving
and of letting go, and of moving on.