Wetlanders
Tim Hazell
Open your door and listen for my call.We go to the well, you and I, to draw water from it.
Water for the thirst of the God,
for the thirst of ourselves and our children.
Water for the thirsty pot over the fire
in which we will prepare our food.
We wash our clothes at the river’s edge.
A boy leaves his belongings on a stone
and plunges in to luxuriate in his nakedness
and the water’s caress.
He will bring this ceremony back with him
and carry that exquisite torrent in his head.
The tropical sun is out but it’s raining.
Light hits the droplets and they become dispersed mandalas
reflecting the spectrum, peacock radiant.
Water runs down the streets of our provincial town like rumors.
You can watch from the streaked windows,
daydream, cease to exist.
I daydream as clouds gather and a heavier rain begins.
My mother is asking, “What is that smell?” as she gets my bath ready.
I smell basil, black herbs - the water’s scent of all herbs combined.
The scent will emanate from fields and wildflowers
at river’s edge like watermusic to serenade the eternal summer’s night.
I expect to smell like this forever, like perfumed blood.
Today the sun does not dance, the water does not shimmer,
the green mountain does not smile.
A form made of water rises over the town church, hovers,
is gradually reduced by the sun, vaporized.
The wind picks up, keening in a woman’s voice,
wheedling like a crone.
This happens in front of me.
I see and hear and smell and touch and taste the experience,
flooded on the inside. I churn. My lungs threaten to burst.
I feel intensely alive at this moment, ignited by the natural water,
water that is mine, private, internal,
that no one else shall ever possess.
Today, the monsoon will grace this house,
each sad drop one facet of an insect’s compound lens.
The deluge a dark mirror of myself, my chattel, my neighbors.
The sodden earth receives, tomorrow will flower.
Afterwards I’ll press my ear against the smooth barrel of the cistern
to listen for its speech and know the voice of imprisoned water.
Another day of life, of nostalgia, begins,
infused with the odor of humus. I am unable to sleep,
ignited by the dawn, then pelted by the sky.
Salt flows from my eyes, my eyelids are of stone.
I cannot leave the bed, pass my hands over my body,
which now belongs to you alone.
My basket of memory empties as yours fills.
Your eyes appear on the ceiling of my room,
slowly descend and sink into the floor.
I remember that yours is the glance
that can persuade the clouds
to let out their hearts.
Wind, rain, conjure me up a purified soul!
A soul that shivers and is water essence,
blue, transparent, transcendent.
With this I may entice you back.
Water dissolves, reconciles everything.
The one arbitrator impossible to resist.
I’m sure to be acquitted after this long monsoon night ends.
The rains are persistent, insistent.
You will relent, no argument is strident enough.
Inside these four white walls,
I open the window to let the room breathe.
With the cool blast will come a rush of the imagination.
Turn to me now and say that you want coffee and rain.
I will pour, steam will rise, and we’ll both wait for the sky to open.
Water is still a mystery,
the clearest mystery I know.
When the clouds break, the earth runs,
sweet liquid enters our mouths.
It redoubles its dance on the roof tiles,
wakes the baby in the crib.
I am at the window, watching an old man
with carpenters’ tools and gnarled body
make his arthritic journey across the rivulets,
drenched and unprotected.
The rain helps us to sing.
We are silent now in front of this ritual.
Silent because we are small and rudderless.
We are not the originators of the song.
We have only dipped our hands in the water.