Water

You may think that water is just
the primary moving part
in the machine 
of the world.

But when it rains,
it calls out to us
from gutters, drainpipes, 
rivers and ditches.

And so it is a communicator
of the secret and forgotten passages
by which it passes through
the human layer.

And when it rains,
the roads and pavements shine
and street lights live again
in the darkness of puddles.

It is a renewer
more honest than snow,
and it gives second chances to those
who have burned theirs away.

Water does so many things
and does them so many times.
Perhaps its power of revival stems
from making each its first.

This Is Not About You

Go and look at the waves
See how they crash on the shore
Again and again and again
No newspaper reports them
You saw them with your own eyes
No billionaire chose for you to see them
You went of your own accord
No authority gave you permission
You did that yourself
But this isn't about you
It's about the waves
And how they do what they do
Without the slightest human intervention
And it's about more than the waves
It's about the dripping in limestone caves
It's about the creatures in the Mariana Trench
It's about the formation of rain drops at two and a half thousand feet
And how none of them depend on humans
They do not require photographers in order to exist
No commissioning editor controls their existence
They just are
And they just do
Whether you know it or not
And that's not just true on Earth
But in the great red spot on Jupiter
And the soft gyres of the atmosphere of Neptune
And in the nuclear fusion of the sun
And in the elliptical paths of comets
And in the swallowed light of black holes
And in the slow but inexorable expansion of the universe
None of it is about humans
None of it is about you
None of it cares about you or has the capacity to do so
It has been happening
It is happening
And it will go on happening
Whether you know it or not
Whether it's in a big book of high resolution photographs or not
Whether any scientist anywhere has observed it or ever will
And this is true of almost the entire universe
Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of it
Everything except for the tiny lantern of cognition here on Earth
A theatre in which every audience member also sits upon the stage
Almost everything that has happened, is happening and will happen
Does so wholly one hundred percent regardless of humans or whatever they happen to think
And the crashing waves on the beach
Are just the beginning of a thread
That begins here
And wraps all the way around the universe
And you can go
And look at them
And remember
This is not about you
None of this is about you

River and Her Man

I, a witty human,
buzz at the surf.
It, a muscular river,
paws at the shale.

A mosquito and a hippopotamus,
we live up to the limit
of each other's worlds.

Applying tiny forces
in highly specific ways,
I call myself
sophisticated.

It roars in ascent
and in retreat,
ever outward facing.

It does not choose.
It is the most complete
embodiment of its own
possibilities.

In a boat, I row across it,
drawing a line
in the extended now
of my inner world.

It whispers
directly into my dreams,
from beneath,
at the softest part of my mind,

rolling against my
least-known shore
and doing what she
always does,

shaping me in ways
my clever brain
will never comprehend.

Unsupervised One Saturday

At ten o'clock, one Saturday, 
I sellotaped razor blades all over my body 
and wondered why I did not become 
sharp. 

At twenty past ten, I wrote myself in 
as the recipient on all my cheques 
and wondered why I did not become 
rich. 

At quarter past eleven, I cracked all the eggs, 
hundreds of them, into one vast bowl 
and mixed them all together 
in an effort to understand 
the questions of life and motherhood, but 
the vast gluey mixture 
just sat there and shone in the morning sunlight, froth like 

spit. 

It was neither water nor air. 
It was bodyful and knowing. 
I thought I could hear it laughing. 
I tossed in all the egg shells, 
but it did not make it better. 
In fact, it made it 

worse. 

At five to twelve, I broke a living room window 
and wondered why my home did not fill with 

air.

At half past one, I threw all the books on the floor 
and wondered why the words did not mingle and mate and make more 

books.

At five to two, I looked in the mirror 
and saw that I bled from the razor blades and the broken glass 

and had bits of dried egg yolk on my glasses. 
I took my glasses off, rubbed my eyes 
and wished that I hadn't done 

any of it. 

Then I went and I filled every container with water 
and put each one on the floor. 
I made a museum of water. 

I made a regiment of a water army. 
I kept doing it. 
I couldn't remember if I'd done it before. 
The water vessels looked noble and various. 
It looked like a forest. 

I felt like 

a giant. 

Soon, the water rose up like a tide and carried me 
and my sellotape and razors and my books and my eggs, 
and we all flowed through the hole in the window 
and down the hill and into the river and 

away.

On Being Drunk

Water has a million voices.

It splashes, pours, patters, flushes,

Babbles, roars, makes other noises.

Sometimes it gurgles; sometimes it rushes.

And sometimes water's in my glass,

And when I put it to my lip,

I can smell its ocean mass,

And if I'm feeling brave, I sip.

And then the water's moving through me,

Trickling, foaming, bubbling, sloshing,

I am become a river valley,

The water passes through me, frothing.

But soon the water will be gone,

And I'll be here, my valley dry.

All because I must cling on,

With water simply passing by.

But if I could just let go,

And travel down toward the sea,

And mingle there with melted snow,

And leave the solid body-me,

I'd soon rise up, evaporate,

And then I would become a cloud,

I'd thunder, drift and cumulate.

Oh, how I wish it were allowed!

'Cos if I could, I'd next be rain.

I'd slash and torrent, precipitate,

I could make buses aquaplane,

The floods and landslides I'd create!

But all too soon, I'd be scooped up,

And channelled fast to someone's tub,

And wash some hair or get brewed up,

Make up juice in someone's pub.

And in a chair, I'd find myself,

Really not the worse for wear,

For having touched an ocean shelf,

How nice, in fact, to be bodily there.

Yes, maybe life is not so dire,

My mind and body aren't so numb.

It's not to be water that I aspire,

It's just that aqueous momentum!