Tuesday Poem: from The Water Series

The Sink

Luna visits the dying: house after house,

slowly yielding to tidal hunger,

all roof waver, and shingle warp,

like fish, someone caught and abandoned,

scales curled and lifted by the too hot sun,

smelling of woodrot, maggots and mildew,

windows gone cloudy and wall-eyed.

Doors darken from the waterline up.

One day, a whole section of wall

slides away and gulls hop in

for a once over. Then reeds push

through what steps were left intact.

A narrow dock holds fast to its

sodden pilings until it floats, like

Charon’s raft, off to the underworld.

Luna meditates on gradual decay;

what it leaves behind and what it takes away.

Tuesday Poem: Another From The Post-deluvian Water Series

Naiads

Twice a year are the rememberings.

Each Naiad stepping up and doing her part

as spirit anchor, holding on to what was,

and what could come again of water’s blessing.

It’s a conjuring: first, faucet water,

sweet as wild grasses, with no

after taste of the barrel,

then showers falling inside the house,

all unctuous warm, softening

muscles, pinking our bodies cleanly,

mist and drizzle dancing in the air,

bringing earth smell to its full musk, neither 
drench, nor hammer, nor sodden destroyer,

streams brisk on the face, sweet and

cooling on the tongue, a gurgling

tune played on downed logs, twigs, and rocks,

heavy buckets of bounty rising

up the well shaft for all to share in

every manner of sacred ablution,

fountains shooting crystal arcs into

the heat of day, glazing graceful iron babies

and birds, sending the rest of us blessed spray,

rivers benign and lazy, that never once raged or

spilt over their banks, engulfing houses and 
towns, leaving mold tentacles to 
fester behind the recede.

The clear debris-free pond, the rocky cove,

the waterfall, and moss grown creek,

the benevolent silence of the snow flurry.

Luna’s remembering is the lake’s

cool silk, the way it held a body afloat

without you going all rashy and burning.

Each Naiad leading the rest back to

Paradise, water as it was 
when we were innocent: free and clear.