Water Remembers by Anna Adams

When frost draws fishbone and fern on windowpanes,

water is running through memories, tracing forms

like starry mosses, muscles and intricate brains.

                                                            Water has been there.

Thus, as liverwort tongues, it overlapped;

thus it feathered the coalmeasure forest fronds,

and thus it was combed by mermaidens' cold webbed hands.

                                                            Water remembers

bloody adventures as Man, and many deaths

from which it emerged unscathed, as from the fire

water ascends as a ghost and descends as a shower.

                                                            Water reminds us

nothing that truly exists can ever be lost.

It recapitulates its countless loves,

having been present at every winesodden wedding

                                                            and virgin's deflowering.

Water confetti falls on the winter forest,

loading all trees alike with spurious blossom,

heavy as fruit, that bends then breaks the branches.

                                                            Crutches of water

prop every plant in the forest. Making, unmaking,

water is omnipresent and taken for granted;

being, perhaps, mere ambassador, deputy, servant

                                                            of something forgotten.