FEATURE WATER INSPIRATION
ODE TO WATER
How is it that you go everywhere
with no obstacles but for the human made?
In your softness you swirl and slip around the hard and staid,
stroke the stones as you pass, laughing at their stubbornness,
seep through cracks to find the depths where darkness reigns
and scatter your diamonds in sheets of light
across seas and lakes and streams.
Shape-shifting into ice, you remodel landscapes
like a feng shui master, move mountains
and smooth out the hills,
carve continents into whole new shapes.
Never afraid to fall, you trust in surrender,
cascade yourself from heights that would make me swoon
just for the joy of it, and day after day,
dance a slow cha cha with the moon.
And when you grow tired of earthbound life
you find wings, float angelic across the sky,
masquerading as clouds.
Even go so high that you merge with the sun,
survive its fiery furnace who knows how…
And best of all you live in me
as blood and breath and flesh,
and, miracle that it seems to be,
you’ve thus learned to walk and speak and sing,
and Water, you remember everything
you’ve ever been or touched
and bring those gifts to me so I can also know
I am part of All in this whole vast sea,
And that I, too, can trust in its seamless flow.
By Maya Shaw Gale, LW Council Steward
