Water, Sweet Water

Water, sweet water—so pure and so fair,
A vital life source, as vital as air.
For friends who are fasting, its comfort is clear,
Steering the mind to a quiet frontier.
Hydration, the courier, never asks why;
It simply arrives where the living rely.

Like mountain streams carving a passage through stone,
It tumbles down gorges to etch out a home.
No river grows mighty by running alone:
Each tributary lends some strength of its own.
It widens at last where the shorelines appear,
Where currents dig deep under surfaces clear.
It turns dusty furrows to tables of bread,
Then wanders through towns where the thirsty are fed.
So, drink up, dear friends, for the journey is true:
From raincloud to cup... back into the blue.

Revision 7/23/26

This poem has been revised. A lot.

It began as a didactic piece about fasting and hydration.

Useful stuff, but it felt more like an educational list than a poetic journey. Somewhere along the way, I stopped listing benefits and just started following the water.

The poem left the glass behind and wandered through mountain streams, rivers, farms, and towns. By the end, it wasn’t really about drinking water anymore. It was about where the drop came from.

The poem had its own plans. I just had to catch up.