Water

 

Born in the crush of gases and dust as stars are born, water is created in the compressed heat of a solar system’s infancy. What is here now, was here then. We bathe in the historical artifact of New Creation; we slake our thirsts with that in which pre-cellular life began to coalesce.

We are children of the sun, and brothers and sisters of the oceans. Water is the essence of our physical eternality.

The river becomes the cloud becomes the rain becomes the corn becomes the cow becomes the milk, and we gather around dishes of ice cream. The wave washing ashore this day in Burma is a messenger of the pterodactyls which flew over it 150 million years ago, and is a prophet to living beings of tomorrow for which we have no name. We breathe the ocean, feel the seas pulse in our veins, and are immersed in the wetness of all time.

“Water” by Mary Oliver

What is the vitality and necessity of clean water?

Ask the man who is ill, and who is lifting his lips to the cup.

Ask the forest.

from Parabola, Winter 2007