Water: A Free-Verse Poem

Giver of life, bringer of death,

Ingredient of primordial soup

Whence the first tadpole emerged,

Half in and half out,

Knowing that I was its past, present, and future.

Fallen from the sky,

I bring sustenance to what lives.

Desiccation becomes green;

Green becomes lush with lichens and moss.

I pool in creeks and drain like tears

To rivers, then to salty oceans.

Watch me from the Moon

And see my blueness.

Sail over me in your ships and boats

And see my denizens

Staring fish-eyed back at you.

Dam me and name me Hoover or Aswan.

Watch me turn your turbines

To shocking electrical effect.

Channel me through levees and aqueducts,

Around and into your cities.

But never be so arrogant

As to pretend I am controllable.  

You cannot always stanch my fearsome flow,

For I am the inexhaustible product of everything—

The air, the clouds, the mountains.

When my cloud-parents turn dark,

I can inundate and suffocate

The very earth to which I give sustenance.

I drive hurricanes and floods.

My chauffeurs are the winds,

My highways the warm oceans.

The Aztecs called me Tlaloc.

They prayed and sacrificed to me.

They knew I made things grow

In the Valley of Mexico.

They also knew I could raise Lake Texcoco

And ruin everything.

New Orleans thought it could hold me back with levees,

But my daughter Katrina laughed and surged.

I rose into the streets

And quieted the parades and celebrations.

 I can also withhold life

Through my alter ego, drought,

Leaving dry earth, desiccation, and starvation.

I can watch from afar

As you and your earth shrivel.

My stepsister Sahara can be seen from the Moon,

A yellow blight against my blue.

 Giver of life, bringer of death,

I am the main ingredient of all living things

Even proud humans.

More than half your physical substance is me.

You came from life sustained by me.

I give it.

I withhold it.

I fall gently from your skies

And rage across your shores.

You may drink me, dam me, channel me,

Sail upon me and name me.

But never forget:

 You are made of me.

You cannot live without me.

And you will never command me.