To be a drop of water
Recently one of my friends asked me, "If you could be anything in the natural world, without the traditional idea of consciousness, what would you be?" Some people in the group (text) said the sun or the moon, another "the dust in the light rays that filter through the trees during sunset", one a cloud on Jupiter, someone a bulb in someone's garden...What came to mind for me was to be a drop of water. To be able to travel from the clouds to therein to the rivers to the sea, continuously being recycled and exploring. Maybe one time a plant, or part of a human, or who knows what else. The following poem was inspired by this idea.
To be a drop of water
Oh what joy it is to be
A drop of water Travelling in the clouds over land and lake
Over countries and cities
No boundaries does water make
One day the clouds get heavy
Enough droplets have joined the cause
With a stormy crash the clouds break
And the drops begin to fall
As one little drop of water
Falls through the sky
The wonderous things it has seen in the clouds
Come ever closer by
The drop lands hard with a splat
Upon a shingled rooftop
The clamor of its cousins
Echo across the flat
Before it has time to gather itself
Gravity sweeps it away
Down towards the street beneath
Across the gutter edge it falls
This time landing on a lady’s gentle cheek
Combing with the salty tears that roll across her face
Trembling the drop falls
Sliding down her arm,
Over fingers outstretched
Reaching for something
Or someone
Before the drop can see
It falls to the earth below
Swirling with the puddles forming
Rivulets of water
Again the bend and pull downhill
As gravity is the only guide
For this little drop of water
The trickle of water
Travels through grass and flowers
Encountering all manner of plants
Some droplets are swept up
Taken in by the plants roots
But this little drop continues on
Until the trickle reaches a stream
Plop again goes the drop
Into an unending torrent
As the stream speeds by
Racing down each bend and gully
Some parts where the river slows
The droplet meets fish so large
Mouths gaping in laughter
At the crawdads backwards jaunts
The droplet continues in this stream
For many days
As slowly the stream becomes a river
The drop flows and follows the river
Learning the ways of the animals
The pond weeds
The way sunshine filters
Through the layers of water above it
Soon though, the water starts becoming salty
As the ocean beckons nearby
The river soon becomes an estuary
Now the droplet meets crabs and clams
Hearing their cry
As herons stab their beaks,
Through rushes and reeds in the salt marsh
Searching for their dinner
The tide ebbs and flows
But the droplet makes its way to the ocean
Oh the ocean
The big and beautiful ocean
In all of her glory
The droplet has never seen so much water
So vast and deep and blue
Full of knowledge and life and mysteries
The droplet stays in the ocean for what seems like forever
And no time at all
Following the currents
Reaching warmer seas of cerulean blue
And arctic seas so cold the drop wants to crackle and expand
Forming ice like some of its cousins
Some white and pure
Snowy and perfect in their structures
Others vibrant teal
The hearts of glaciers
The droplet continues on its way
The ocean seems endless
The droplet begins to loose itself
Not knowing up from down
Lost in the masses
The knowledge the ocean gives is great but overwhelming
The droplet is not sure it can go on this way much longer
Water drowning water in an endless cycle
One day coming close to the surface
It feels the pull of the sun
Promising new beginnings
The droplet gives itself to the rays of heat
Evaporating with a hiss
Leaving the vast watery depths of the sea
Floating up and up and up
Till it reaches a point in the atmosphere
Where it starts to cool and recenter
The air is damp and soft
A hazy fog starts to condense around it
The droplet begins to recognize its surroundings
A cloud
It has come back to a cloud
To journey anew
New adventures to be had
Set forth by wherever rain falls
Maybe this time it will see what it is like to be a plant
Or snow on a mountaintop
Or tears on a child’s cheek
Or simply a droplet of water
In the wide expanse of the universe