Triptych of Water
written by: Linda Marie Hilton
In the beginning
Gurgle. Bubble. Lines of bubbles. Over a volcanic vent: boil, boil, toil and trouble, cauldron of the ocean burn and bubble: seethe with ions grabbing here and there, let us see what molecules evolve: slowly come together as chains of this and that until one lovely RNA strand forms, then another, and another. Float in the ocean, froth here and there. Volcanos make islands, larger and larger they grow.
The moon wanting our seas pulls water from side to side until it sloshes over the new land. Over and over this happens until the RNA learns to stay itself, making a bubble dry on the outside, wet on the inside. The moon does this for eons: does she want our water or is she the source of life: the goddess?
Or a mechanism designed by a galactic power to water the new land until lichens emerge, and fungi, clinging to rocks. The seas as a vast swimming pool of life. Strands of RNA are zapped by lightning and become more complex and algae emerge. They cling to rocks and strand more into seaweeds. Eons of this increase the variety of diatoms, protozoa, until jellyfish emerge. Water as the primordial soup is the basis for all life. Life crawls out onto land. Plants grow taller and eat all the carbon dioxide, spewing out oxygen and putting the carbon into their beings. Life crawls over plants and eats them.
The seas have spawned an entire planet of an infinite variety of life.
Master Carvers who have Terraformed the Earth
Playing in the air, riding the wind, crystalizing on airborne spores to fall maybe as snow to lie in the sun or find a narrow defile and congregate merrily with our kin and tumble downhill gurgling, frothing, jumping into the air with glee or to be bottle green and swirl gently in a cool shady eddy beneath which trout nap. We made the Grand Canyon, we made The Three Gorges, we roam from Nepal to Nairobi.
The sand and silt we have worn away we leave here and there as alluvial deposits so that plants may grow and other creatures will have food to eat. We shape the valleys for shelter from withering winter winds. We break rocks into pieces, and pieces into pieces, and so on until there is dirt and the occasional diamond for wonder. We let gold settle out since it is so heavy into the placer layers. We nourish the plants. We give birds baths. We gently wash gravel beds so salmon may spawn and fish may be born. We are the spouts of whales. We are the currents hot and cold adding to the Coriolis effect so that there may be variations in the weather. We travel underground here and there, sometimes resting so humans can find us when they dig wells. Sometimes we go deep enough to heat up and jump joyously as Old Faithful. Sometimes we just burble to the surface and don’t freeze in winter so creatures can drink and do not have to eat snow. Or we form a heated pool for bathing. We love to be waterfalls above all else: such playing! At Niagara we positively thunder in our glee.
We exist at all temperatures on Terra in one or another of our forms. At 32 degrees F we can exist in all three forms: gas, liquid, and solid, in close proximity. We are water unless electricity is applied to us to break us into hydrogen and oxygen: We are Water!!!!
My Love is Blue Water
Zygote, in my bubble, I bounce in water blue, blue, blue my world is blue,
blue as the sky, one seventh of refracted light. Like all Terran life, I begin in
water blue, blue, blue my world is blue. Plain water, algal water, sulphureous
water, blue, blue my world is blue. Small and light I float on blue water, blue, blue
my world is blue. Love is blue. Like two water molecules: my head and arms
are one, my torso and legs are the second. Imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery. Oxygen is staunch: head and torso. Hydrogen flails: arms and legs.
Blue, blue my world is blue. I am a two-molecule chain of water.
Eventually I am big and I am 89% sea water, I enclose my world, my blue world
with just 11% of stuff, mostly carbon. My bag of surrounding water bursts and
after much stress I am born into air, no water, so I cry!!!! I cry for water. All my
life I will cry for water. When I am mature I will cry for 80 ounces a day. Without
You blue water, I dry, I sere, I become a heap of calcium, blue, blue my world is
blue, longing for you, now I am without life.
- Comfort and Joy will Tide us Over - December 22, 2023
- Gossamer Weave - October 25, 2023
- Taoist Song - September 27, 2023