Water

A post and a few poems about the imagery of water

Water.

The most essential element of life.

As such, it bewitches, with its capacity to give and take so easily.

To bloat us with its excess, shrivel and wilt us when we are denied it, to allow us to keep our heads above it…..or drown.

The power of a tsunami shows us that the will of water always eclipses our own.

I often veer towards water in my writing but I’ve noticed it more of late and wondered if it had anything to do with the sun now being in Pisces - if you believe in astrology.

I’m never sure what I make of it.

When I ‘allow’ myself to believe in astrology - and I don’t always - I find myself strongly disliking the fact I apparently, have ‘Venus’ in ‘Pisces’.

I consider this a pathetic, drippy placement disrupting my fire party and wonder what a daring goddess I could be without it - although I’m 90% there, to be fair 😉🔥

If I wasn’t prone to the day dreaming, romanticism and brooding ‘she’ adds, damn…..I would be just……..fire, unstoppable!

So, I strive to keep ‘her’ in check a bit. Remind her she can be a bloody wet blanket and that my Aries sun is boss.

Poetry certainly pulls me into the Piscean Venus vortex. Emotions are so easily expressed in terms of liquid. They hold, surround, simmer and crash.

I am intrigued by the physical trickery of water, too. The deceit of it.

I once read a book called ‘How to read water’ which was all about looking for clues on the top as to what the rest was like. How appealing to become a ‘water detective’!

To be able to predict what lies beneath a surface is a dying and useful art.

Maybe that’s what we all strive to do with the emotions of people, too. To read them as water. Learn a person’s depth from the telling signs that pool upon their face, or master identifying spikes that fracture the smooth flow of words as ice shards.

My son has taught me a lot about this.

He has such an epic radar for emotion.

When he tells me, that talking in a certain voice makes him itch, for example, it makes me realise the connections between things most of us give little regard to.

My growing awareness of the sensitivities of others makes me pay more attention to the subtleties that compose the delivery of every single message.

“Bollocks, you’re blunt as a fucking hammer”

Pipes up my fire.

I’m gonna leave them arguing anyway……..as usual!

Lake of Stars

I found you in a lake of stars

Skin swarmed alive with bees of lace

Your voice rose up as sparkling chains

To hold me in this wondrous space

Then, peace surrounded me, a pause

Ripe ripples murmured at my feet

I loved you more, as I saw flaws

I ate your salt, freshwater sweet

I nearly fell into the void

Believed it to be really you

But stars don’t ever live in lakes

And my illusion wasn’t true

I love in waves

I love in waves, they crash and lap

A need to buoy each aimless ship

I crave the build, the crest, the drop

Feel force of life lash blue my lips

Watch foam roam restless, seethe to clear

Smash sets of gloating white teeth cliffs

Sail saline wars that nudge my fear

Cast tiny rowing boats adrift

Sunbeams tease upon the surface

Flipping silver, gleaming fish

If there’s no treasure, has it purpose?

Or is the pleasure in the wish?

The calm, the swell, the rise, the fall

I love in waves, they live in me

To sting, applaud…. to feel it all

Cannot be saved, I am the sea

Deep

Don’t speak to me in drab and grey

Of TV shows or weather

Colleagues, bills or traffic news

Or what you had for dinner

I yearn to sing you as a song

To see which candle brights you

Where do your passions voyage most?

What colour best excites you?

Which textures make you tingle gold?

Which music flicks your switches?

Which scent glitters your every nerve?

Which book has you in stitches?

Let’s swim with sharks out of our depth

Feel hearts jump ropes like crazy

Then beach upon your wildest land

Shake dreams as dew from daisies

I’ll push you on an old rope swing

That hangs above a river

We’ll leap across, just make the rocks

And clamber to new heather

I’ll feed you heart shaped sandwiches

And then we’ll make some mud pies

We’ll find a crystal waterfall

Have rapids polish jewel eyes

Tell me all you’d like to do

Let’s not conceive of limits

We’ll pull each other to our peak

Drink dawn in from bold summit

Let’s vow to never chat in tones

Of cardigans and biscuits

Of putting bins out, washing up

For that would surely risk it

Oust the zone of dog eared beige

In shallow lurks true danger

Swim out and soak with me in deep

Or else, remain a stranger