Water Cycle part 1 of a series of poems based on the Elements

I am taking a wonderful poetry writing workshop with Meredith Heller called “Elemental Women.”

We started by writing a poem about water, and I have taken it on as my theme for this week, writing a poem each day with water. Here are my explorations so far:

Ode to Water

Oh incubator of life!

Oh tides of dreams!

You manifest in wondrous waves...

Crashing and swirling

Parting and plunking

Following flows only the moon knows

Oneness of circulation

My body my blood

We pulse and flow in 

rhythms of interconnecting currents

Steaming through volcanoes

Slogging through floods

Twisting into hurricanes

Dripping in drizzles

Deepening in still pools

Tumbling down waterfalls

Creeping through glaciers

And holding still

Frozen

As an iceberg 

through millenia

Oh wizard of changes

Teach me the lessons

Of adaptation

School me

In shape shifting

melt my depths

So I too may flow

Effortlessly

Free from form

Water Memories

Water flowing 

In waves of memory

 New Jersey sea shore

Ocean waves

5 year old

Eyes filled with wonder

Bathing suit filled with sand

Popping seaweed

On the beach

Taste of salt

Penetrating my nose

Sand castles washing away

Waves 

dancing me

Along the edges

In the never ending game 

Of chase and be chased

Water, my muse

I dive into you 

Over and over

And over again

Melting into your flow

Rocked by your gentle breath

Sucked down by your undertow

Then swimming up

Like a cork

still

unsinkable

RBG grief

Tears streaming

Out pouring of grief

A salty ocean

Maybe the ocean

Is the repository

For all of the grief that has ever been

And my tears

The reminder that I

Am part of this vast

Oneness

Buoyancy of salt water

Keeping me

Afloat

Water Contained

Water balloons 

On hot afternoons

Cannonball splash

Pool parties crash

Snowballs hurl

Snowmen twirl

Ice burgs melt

Coastal towns yelp

Water I slurp

And you usurp

A Water riddle

Water Sprites frogs

And crocodiles

Dance with you

Fish dolphins

And whales

Bugaloo

Octopi fly

Seamonsters sigh

And I wonder why

You are in my breath

But I can’t breathe in you…

The Drink

Magnitude unknowable

every salty drop

frothing 

infinite grains of sand

How do I calculate vastness?

How do I quantify The Mystery?

Simply float

feel the pulse

rocked by the rhythm

of tide and wind

heartbeat and breath

Eternal dance 

of spray kissing sand

raindrops on earth

waves rolling 

and subsiding

A glass of water

brings many stories

This drop from a waterfall

plunging thousands of feet

into the Amazon

later traveling through a NYC sewer

lurching from the lips of a dictator

inhaled by the Bodhisatva 

before raining down

on London

Web of water

Cycling 

placid

In vast expanses

then tumultuous

amalgamation

The vapor of my grandmother’s last breath

The mist of a dewy morning

Sweat rolling off

the arms of a farmer

kissing the soil in riverlets

evaporating into hurricanes and tornadoes

soil torn trees twisted

Water

you rarely dance alone

drink deep and soak your cells

in the tempest 

of life!