Water Creatures

by sibyllene   Oct 21, 2010


There is goodness in living
a life like a young river-
flushed and quick and
white with froth.

There is beauty in living
a life like a still pool-
smooth like unconcerned brows,
a surface quieted for scrying.

Either way, we are water creatures
and we are thick with it

and it seeps into our brains and
slides between cells,
and weeps from our skin
in fear,
in lust,
in action...
and it pours from our eyes in
anguish and in joy.

We are water bodied:
swimming in the womb,
suspended like stars, buoyed
in the bellies of our mothers, who
live lives of ardent vim, or

of slowly tided clarity, who
may or may not realize
it's all the same:

That leaping white rivers reach a wide and rhythmic bay.
That even drying pools are born again in storms.

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Latest Comments

  • 12 years ago

    by Yakari Gabriel

    "smooth like unconcerned brows"

    WHAT ARE YOU??!!

    how even...

    I can't..I can't handle this right now.

  • 13 years ago

    by Sungrl And Mrs Whatsit

    I Love This.

    I think I will memorize it.

    Big Bravo to you..

  • 14 years ago

    by silvershoes

    You have a unique but never overwhelming sense of vocabulary, in its diversity. Before this poem, I might have argued that we're not water creatures... that water isn't our element - but after reading, I'm rather certain I've lost any argument I would have had. Very convincing! I adore the imagery you use, as always. Picturesque, beautiful, and never not breath-taking (like that double negative? I'm good at those).
    I'm thrilled you've been writing as much as you have been lately. It's a real treat.
    I'd nominate this for the weekly, as with the majority of your poems, but I think each poet can only win once a month, and you already had your win this month :)
    Can't wait to read more poems from you, Sibby. Don't ever stop!

  • 14 years ago

    by sibyllene

    Oh, let me check....

    Ok, I believe it's only life-like if you're talking about something that isn't real (or living) but appears to be. The way I'm using here is meant more like "life that is similar to." That sort of like. So I don't think the hyphen is required, in that sense.

    Thanks for your comment! I remembered that I still hadn't posted these.

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