Like the Alpha-Omega, water
can give life, and take it away;
can nourish a whole planet,
and wipe its face clean;
sits tall on a sky’s throne,
and humbly washes your feet.
Like humans, water
can fall, or stay unconscious
in Samsara, accusing Fate
all the way to a swamp.
Most do end up in the ocean; but
one has to brave the Sun’s
purgatory purification
to rebirth into heaven’s endless
azure.
Like love, water
may boil or freeze
your deepest thirst.
Like love, it burns your eyes
at the peak
and the rock bottom.
Like love, it carry-
compasses us back
to the Cosmic.
-Jiang Pu
Jiang Pu, Ph.D., is an Ed leader and nature advocate based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her recent poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Caesura, Topical Poetry, among others, and in the 2023 anthology Poetry of the Wild Flowers. Find her at www.jiangpu.org
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