Water World, Water Music

Water World

The world is wrapped in water –

wobbling and washing,

sloshing and sliding,

dripping and swishing -

it sings as it swims.

A long time ago, I thought that real poets wrote serious poems, weighted with meaning and significance. But I’m finding that I also like to play with language, sound, and imagery, just to have fun. Sitting in our living room one evening, I was looking out our window and thinking of the sounds that our water feature makes with all its mini water-falls and rapids. I found s, i, and w words coming to mind, all of which appeared in the final word of the poem without my even thinking about it.

As I wrote this poem, many other water worlds appeared in my mind: ocean shores, mountain lakes, rainstorms, water sprinklers, my morning shower or evening hot bath, the splash and hiss of water pouring into our kitchen sink as I do the dishes, the fountain in our courtyard. They each seem to have an unnameable essence and life, outside the worlds of solids and space. And what rarity flowing water is in a universe of stars and vacuum and light years of time and distance!

What water-songs do you hear in this video, which I made in the most musical area of our water feature? It's almost like a choir - delicate splashes mixed with deeper bubbling, matched by the light and shadow of the water dancing over the rocks.

We take the sound and sight of water for granted, it seems - so everdayish and ordinary - until we come upon it tumbling over rocks or washing over our feet at the beach or falling in torrents from the sky. Maybe I'm more attuned to it here in Sedona, where water is rarely present in the landscape. May these few words entice you into listening to the water in your life!