water is another matter

 

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Everything on the earth bristled, the bramble

pricked and the green thread

nibbled away, the petal fell, falling

until the only flower was the falling itself.

Water is another matter,

has no direction but its own bright grace,

runs through all imaginable colors,

takes limpid lessons

from stone,

and in those functionings plays out

the unrealized ambitions of the foam. 

 

—Pablo Neruda

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The Gift of Water

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Someone who doesn't know the Tigris River exists
brings the caliph who lives near the river
a jar of fresh water. The caliph accepts, thanks him,
and gives in return a jar filled with gold coins.

"Since this man has come through desert,
he should return by water." Taken out by another door,
the man steps into a waiting boat
and sees the wide freshwater of the Tigris.
He bows his head, "What wonderful kindness
that he took my gift."

Every object and being in the universe is
a jar overfilled with wisdom and beauty,
a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained
by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth
more shining, as though covered in satin.
If the man had seen even a tributary
of the great river, he wouldn't have brought
the innocence of his gift.

Those that stay and live by the Tigris
grow so ecstatic that they throw rocks at jugs,
and the jugs become perfect!

They shatter.
The pieces dance, and water...

Do you see?
Neither jar, nor water, nor stone,
nothing.

You knock at the door of reality,
shake your thought-wings, loosen
your shoulders,
and open.


—Rumi
Mathnavi 1: 2850-70
Version by Coleman Barks

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finding a teacher

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In the woods I came on an old friend fishing

and I asked him a question
and he said Wait

fish were rising in the deep stream 
but his line was not stirring 
but I waited 
it was a question about the sun 

about my two eyes 
my ears my mouth 
my heart the earth with its four seasons 
my feet where I was standing 
where I was going 

it slipped through my hands 
as though it were water 
into the river 
it flowed under the trees 
it sank under hulls far away 
and was gone without me 
then where I stood night fell 

I no longer knew what to ask 
I could tell that his line had no hook 
I understood that I was to stay and eat with him 


—W.S. Merwin

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Linn Park

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water(falls

   

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The water which sees the air through broken veins of the high mountain summits is suddenly abandoned by the power which brought it there, and escaping from these forces resumes its natural course in liberty. 

Likewise the water that rises from the low roots of the vine to its lofty head falls through the cut branches upon the roots and mounts anew to the place whence it fell. 

—Leonardo da Vinci

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carrying water

 

 
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Near Ekuvukeni, 
in Natal, South Africa,
a woman carries water on her head.
After a year of drought,
when one child in three is at risk of death,
she returns from a distant well,
carrying water on her head.

The pumpkins are gone,
the tomatoes withered,
yet the woman carries water on her head.
The cattle kraals are empty,
the goats gaunt-
no milk now for children,
but she is carrying water on her head.
 

The engineers have reversed the river:
those with power can keep their power,
but one woman is carrying water on her head.
In the homelands, where the dusty crowds
watch the empty roads for water trucks,
one woman trusts herself with treasure,
and carries water on her head.
 

The sun does not dissuade her,
not the dried earth that blows against her,
as she carries the water on her head.
In a huge and dirty pail,
with an idle handle,
resting on a narrow can,
this woman is carrying water on her head.
 

This woman, who girds her neck
with safety pins, this one
who carries water on her head,
trusts her own head to bring to her people
what they need now
between life and death:
She is carrying them water on her head. 

—Joan Murray

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leaving

 

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How much delight I've known
in navigating down the flow
by stepping stones, by sounding 
stones, by words that are
stepping and sounding stones.

Going down stone by stone,
the song of the water changes,
changing the way I walk
which change my thought
as I go. Stone to stone
the stream flows. Stone to stone
the walker goes. The words
stand stone still until
the flow moves them, changing
the sound - a new word -
a new place to step or stand.


—Wendell Berry

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sonnet

 

 

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What I have given you,
will never be a burden,
because
what I gave you
was always yours,
the flower or the wood,
the word or walls,
food of fleeting
love, resting or burning
in our hands.

But all
I gave you,
all I give you,
all I extend to you,
will contain this secret
voice
of
water.


—Pablo Neruda

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