On drinking water

 

What besides

pure water a glass

of water contains:

 

of the sky nothing

necessarily, but always

something

 

of the cavernous

substratum

calcium, potassium

 

the wooden ladder we climb

down into the chasm

to swim.

 

©Gregory O’Brien

 

This poem was included in a painting of mine in the Water Project exhibition, curated by Shirin Khosraviani  at the Ashburton Art Gallery. The exhibition has just come down–but will be touring the nation over the next year or two. Pic of the painting, ‘Ode to a South Island water molecule’:

 

 

 

Gregory O’Brien is currently living in Alexandra, Central Otago, where he is working on a new collection of poems and finishing Always song in the water, a book of travels in Northland and aquatic regions north of there.