Considering Water:

 

                              I settled deep into my body

                                             feeling my way into prayer

                                             for the waters of Japan.

                              And the waters there, so injured

                                             by the radiation they have absorbed

                                             while helping humans harness atomic energy

               to  power all manner of uses,

                                                            both good and of dubious value,

                                             echoed my prayer for their healing

                                                            back to me, still in prayer, in my body.

 

                              The echoes touched the waters of my body,

                                             and spoke what my body already knew

                                             about the waters of Japan:

                                                            all the waters of earth

                                                            are part of each other

                                                            in cycles and patterns of time

                                                            I can barely understand

                                                            with my mind.

                              The waters know beyond our knowings.

 

                              The waters of Japan and the waters of my body

                                             know themselves as all one Belonging.

                                             When one is injured or damaged,

                                             all of them are together in carrying it,

                                                            sharing it,

                                             serving as lifeblood in us

               as in the entire body

                                             of Gaia, our home planet.

                              I prayed my feeble apology

                                             for what we do to injure water,

                                             which is us and on which our lives depend.

                              The waters absorbed my apology

                                             as they have absorbed all the poisons,

                              and a knowing filled up in me

                                             as if I were a cup for water,

                                             and this knowing became very loud,

                                             and shrill as an evacuation siren,

                                                            a dire sound, urgent,

                                                            warning me,

                                                            and the finger of it pointed to

                                                                           HANFORD.

 

                              Years’ long awareness of its time-bomb dangers

                                             have not changed our knowing

                                             into action to care for its spreading poisons,

                                                            actions which could save our lives,

                                                            or which could have,

                                                            if taken in time,

                                                            if we had not relied

                                                            on empty promises

                                                            of our immobilized governments

                                                            if all of us had joined together

                                                            in unity as the waters are,

                                                            if we had learned to act together,

                                                            to work out healing of the earth

                                                                           in time.

 

                              The waters of Japan, in my body, ask urgently,

                                                            Will you act

                                                                           in time?!!!

 

—Carol Bosworth