The Water Next Time - By Mara Lemanis
The Water Next Time
It is the water, that sound
the music in the current
rising
as it swells to meet the land
that sound
aboriginal
then muted
trapped in ice
music dimmed
a monotone voice
a fugue of bass notes
in a never-ending loop
till counterpoints of dust and plankton
sweep down the arctic slopes
to ring crescendos
drop soot
black notes against white sheets
studding the frigid breast of continents
polished by primordial winds
relentless wails
whistles
spinning soot in dizzy webs
like spiders drunk on snow melt
webs crossing centuries
of deadly white
seeping rivulets of soot
inside the motherlode
of polar glare
tuning melodies
like crystal glass
caressed by bony hands
stopped short a thousand meters down
inside the crust of water hard as stone
to open a black vein
between the white and gray
stilled into a bed
of motionless lake
narrow silent dark
sleeping
waiting
as cymbals crash above
blare through the vasts
slice soot through layers dense
with frozen fluid
shear trenches wide as birth canals
run rivers
plunging through eternities of winter
driving symphonies
a savage noise
a roar of kettle drums
roar of freedom
oblivious of the broken breast
they feed upon
plowing canyons in the sea
to vibrate in a valley decades deep
gouging a tower
miles down ocean floors
setting a million iron bells
to ring
to upwell surfs of salt
to scale the underside
of bass-voiced mesas
to toll at polar palisades
a hymn of freedom
as tides rise unabated
to meet the land
to harvest it
for their own ends
and silence the moraine
as arctic whiteness ebbs
leaving an afterbirth
that drops away
to ocean swells
humming
a valediction to the land
blanketing the earth
with their eternal sound
it is the water
that sound
song without end
–Mara Lemanis
Mara Lemanis
Biography: Mara Lemanis is a literary scholar. Her essays have been selected for 20th CENTURY LITERARY CRITICISM
and are included in undergraduate student textbooks in the U.S.
She has worked as an archivist for Historical Preservation and with the IRC, assisting refugees in Oakland, California.
Disclaimer: The views, opinions and positions expressed within this guest article are those of the author Mara Lemanis alone and do not represent those of the Marbella Marbella website. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to Mara Lemanis and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with the author.
