about water

-after Mary Oliver

 

I wonder about water

            the shape of it,

                        the sounds

                                    of its silences

 

one moment smooth

            -glistening voices

                        singing songs of salvation

                                    then curling around

 

embracing smooth stones

            ‘til it leaps up

                        in fright at

                                    the edges of high cliffs

 

then rushes downward

            resigned to its fate

                        there’s a spirit in water

                                    that’s sometimes in me