Writ in Water

by David Constantine

In water never still, never set in her ways
To become a writing perused and developed by an attentive sky
And be always open to the suggestions of sun, moon and stars

And the quiet troops of cumulus and from below
Also by the plant lives pushing up through her, by their rooted feelings
To be taught more and more so long as she lives

And the infinite races of life are able to thrive in her –
Oh to be writ in her, to be accepted
Into one of those eddies that creep almost surreptitiously along

Under the riverbank against the determined flow
In small brave spirals but making not for home, not for the source
But for one of the stillnesses, pauses, holdings behind a falls

To bide there quiet a while in the din of it thoroughly attending
To the jubilant rush and topple of headlong life. I’d say
Any of the living you loved and who love you still

Would be glad to believe you are now writ in water…