It came to me this morning casually
pouring a glass of water:
here is depth, here in my hand,
liquid stardust,
billions of years old,
the elixir of life on earth
and I can drink it.

Millions of molecules have traveled
billions of places and come to me, come through me,
from that deep, dark past
bearing their light and healing and relief.

Now I take a sip.
That smooth, clean swirl
touches my lips and tongue, my teeth and cheeks,
quenching that rough, stuck dryness in my mouth.
Hundreds of thousands of nameless beings have held this water,
these molecules, in their bodies,
no pause for reflection,
just pure need and use and appreciation.

Well, maybe a few, like me,
humans I mean, stopped to think
or consecrate or pray or examine
and so how many times has this water
blessed or been blessed?

Each molecule fills, builds, caries, holds,
connects, bonds, attracts, protects,
over and over and over.
It is the nature of water
and it is my nature to need water,
to be built of it,
my 90 pounds of water that I carry everywhere,
until I let it go to its next mysterious destination:
a holding tank, a leaf, the ocean,
a mist hovering in the trees,
a child just learning to use a cup,
an elder assisted with a loving hand and a straw,
a salmon swimming and surviving in it,
an entrepreneur building an ice hotel,
a flood, a creek, a soft animal body,
and then on again…

Will you return to me or am I a link
in this almost endless cycle
of giving and receiving, this time,
this endless time, this moment of water
full of the history and promise of billions upon billions
of connections made and released?

Water, my great teacher,
flow through me.
—–

For inspiration, thank to Laura Sewall; Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese;” and the movie Last Call at the Oasis, now available on Netflix and previewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLE3i92LkQk.