Saturday, December 10, 2016

Song of Water

Stamp Falls


Water falls as snow,
draping the world in beauty,
softening the hard edges,
hiding the detritus of man-made existence
under a coverlet of pristine perfection,
a mask that hides a thousand man-made wounds,
and a million of humanity's clamoring needs.

If I were a river,
truth would be my song.
I'd roar through rock-walled chasms,
green with weeping,
crash over rocks of resistance,
find my way
through decades of wrong turnings
to the ocean of well-being,
if it took a century
of tribulation,
for that one final moment
of immersion
where my soul belonged.

Water is alive.
Its cells respond to positive and negative,
to love, to anger,
to fear, to distress.
When the Black Snake spills
into its rippling depths,
you cannot hear its anguished screams,
but the dying fish and strangled birds,
the oil-drenched river otters, the grounded swans,
the bears and eagles who have
no fish to eat or water to drink,
join in its song of death.


for Elizabeth Crawford's challenge: Water. I snuck in yesterday's word (Mask) as well. I'm sneaky like that. Smiles. Shared with the Poetry Pantry at  Poets United  and the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.



30 comments:

  1. Wonderful, Sherry. I hear the roar of that cascade, and the soft tap of the single drops, refreshing and bringing life to all. Beautifully said,

    Elizabeth
    PS Yes, I saw the mask, lol...

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  2. Thank you for this wake-up call

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  3. We have to do everything we can to prevent that Black Snake from wreaking its silent destruction! I pray it will be in time.

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  4. You are a river. Indeed, you are. And this is my new favoroite of all of your poems!

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  5. Water is the first medicine and we are made up mainly of it. Thanks for pouring this waterfall of verse.

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  6. Once there was Eden then man came and hated those that loved it and then it died.

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  7. I love the middle verse, we need water to live and we must preserve our resources. Water is a life saving element and the people of standing rock understand this, they are paving the way of change and we
    must help in any way we can.

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  8. Let's hope not... environmentally, physically, or psychologically.
    Love
    ZQ

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  9. find my way
    through decades of wrong turnings

    A lot of unfairness in this world that
    is taking time to be addressed let alone resolved!

    Hank

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  10. An stirring, impactful piece - a call to action: never more important, than this moment in time.

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  11. In the future they say wars will be fought over water..clean water is the earth's most precious commodity.

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  12. Water is a very power force. Love your second stanza. I could feel the force of you as that river. Well done...bkm

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  13. Oh, beautifully said. I like the river flowing with the song of truth, and feel with you the fervent anguish of your final verse. This poem is so timely in the light of the Standing Rock events.

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  14. Wow, beautiful! I love the river flowing with truth, I love it all! ❤️

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  15. I'll hold on fiercely to the image of water falling as snow, and softening the hard edges of this world. At this time in history, we need all the softening we can get!

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  16. Beautifully written Sherry ~ This affirms that water is life itself ~

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  17. Water - the source of life. Beautiful - the "if I were a river" is splendid.

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  18. If I were a river,
    truth would be my song.

    That is a wonderful thought. The world is certainly in need of truth.

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  19. Wow, Sherry, this builds and builds into such a powerful climax. And I like the metaphor of snow as a blanket to hide our ugliness.

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  20. I enjoyed this rafting ride until its disastrous conclusion. Surely, this serves as a wake-up call regarding the world's most precious resource.

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  21. I enjoyed this rafting ride until its disastrous conclusion. Surely, this serves as a wake-up call regarding the world's most precious resource.

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  22. the mask that hides the thousand wounds and the black snake.,,so vivid.

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  23. There's truth in the surprising way you combine water/the river as an awesome life force with the reality of death. I long to swim or even be swept away by the river you describe in the first part of your poem.

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  24. Elegiac and deeply poignant...flawless writing.

    Vera

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  25. Fantastic work, Sherry! I loved the visceral feeling of this.

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  26. Verse 2 of your poem is my favourite

    much love...

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  27. Indeed, your words sing of a truth in the beauty of nature and the necessity of preserving it. Would that we all would listen to the rushing of the river & treasure the water that fills our bodies & souls. Beautiful, Sherry. Thank you.

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  28. Oh Sherry... perfect. And people fight to protect or squander and spoil her.

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