for water

for water

‘Wave’ by Big Cat

if
there were
another word
for water,
it would be
silver
cool in the
throat of song
and high stepping
in dance,
would flop
around its
axis of sky
narrowed to
a thread of
gleam,
would glisten
on stone, bundle
shell along turnings
the length of shore,
flash loud from
mountain-hid ravine
would clean our
eyes, rest our eyes
in night down ladders
of glow attending its
surface in streetlight,
would cradle the
tongue,
be the
entering of love
that rounds the
stones smooth,
the gravity that
pulls the flowers of
the breeze to stand.
would be that
teaching of
softness that
breaks the hard
however long it
needs, it does
without the
word that
drags in dimple
of its flow,
word the sail
of its boat,
would be silver,
would be the
deep of cave,
accreting minerals
in drops, the sift
of ocean along a
driftwood sky.
and if no word
should be judged
best to speak of it,
let it speak of
itself,
would be
water
without
word
and we would
hear it
still
and
onward
still

october 2019

Copyright ©2019 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

From the piece by Tōru Takemitsu: And then I knew t’was wind (1992)