1

Even now
its black waters
are tanked ’nd

safely intact. Pour
seeds or syllables
back down that throat

and all you’ll hear
are scattered ping-pings
on an iron roof. Does

ocean turn
on a feather-bed, a trapped
artesian lake

release its muscle
of pure water, pure speech?
Spring, well

river and waterfall:
all these soft and fluid bodies
have their one source

down here, and in their
various music
you can hear

the pleasure water takes
in always being
its varied self.

2

Insistent
as a metronome
a tap is dripping

in a far part
of the house. If
the elements

indeed have
their own logic
then on this night

water is trying
to tap the darkness
into place. In six

or seven hours time
when we both rise
from this ocean

we may well find
that the new morning
has failed to arrive

above will be
this dark ceiling
and through it

the same watery nails
will be tipping
and tapping.

3

For just one moment
I hold in my hands
the soft

unshelled body
of the water. More shy
than any creature

it trembles,
sways,
then wriggles away

leaving
its silver coin
deep in my palm.

Wet hands,
when clapped together,
produce a strange

clopping sound
— like that of a leg
being tugged

from the fierce
embrace of mud,
or the sound

two bodies make
when prised open
in warm water.

4

Water, water.
Water was there
at the beginning

and at the end
there shall be
nothing but water.

It is wrongly said
that dust
is the final state

yet what is dust
but condensed
and hardened water

water so
aged and decrepit
it cannot move

of its own
free will? See,
mix dust with water

and dust
betrays itself. Here
you see it

in its true light:
dust is merely
impure water.

5

Put your ears
to a bowl
of clear water

and what do you hear?
Not, surely,
the sea

heaving and groaning
on its bed
or even a river

bowling
sedately along. No,
just like a puddle

reflecting
the sky above,
a bowl of clear

clear water
tells only
of silence

of silence
at the heart
of the world

of silence
at the heart
of water.

Image: Ian Talmacs