SERENITY
In the calm waters of a quiet day there is a deep serenity. Soft ripples create mesmerizing and soothing shapes as they reflect land and sky. In these merging patterns and quiet murmurs we can let our troubled thoughts drift away and allow the water to wrap us in its cool, unhurried, embrace.
All nature, from the crag windbreakered in granite
that melts into the nuzzling of the clouds' wet snouts,
to the motes of grit that rise up every morning
and dance in a fountain over the windowsill,
all nature wants to be water. Curled tongues of fire
and sharp tongues of wind stutter and lisp through forests,
longing for the fluency of streams. Clays trapped in
marble fifty million years ago still practice
ripple and purl in rehearsal for the aeon
that will free their liquid hearts, Virginia creeper
clambers on splay-fingered hands up walls and tree trunks
to throw itself down in cascading sprays, even
heaven seeks out lakes where its unfrozen double
pulses. Still more besotted, water dotes on the rest
of nature. Rain, the sky's gift of spirit, so pure
a distillate of blue it abstains from colour,
falls all over the earth, and snowflakes leave unique
designs they've spun their lives into, coming undone
to kiss the same ground the river's whitest water,
charging seaward, turns inside out to wave back at.
- John Reibetanz, A quotation from The Love of Water
