Water Cycle

Each molecule of water, resident
of earth or sky since time began,
recycled, salty, fresh, precipitated
with precision, falling on delighted
children making snowmen, liquid
highway for sleek surfers, rising ever
closer to the rooftops of frightened
families clinging to each other and
to chimneys, cutting canyons on their
way to ancient seas, playground for
whales and trout, turning fallow
fields into this year's bumper crops,
diamond-studded leaves at dawn,
street puddles for lovers to splash
through walking hand in hand. In deepest
oceans only does the water seem content
to stay, dark and cold and distant. Harbor
brackishness, alpine lakes, caverns beneath
the earth, wait patiently for rest time
to pass, permission granted for absorption
into the fierceness of the sun, returning
soon, reborn to play as winter storm
or monsoon in exotic lands. Or gathering
gently with those of like nature
along my window pane to sing a lullaby
as I drift off to sleep.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012