Someone wrote that water is so
important that it forms the land
where we live but seek to leave
for that very water — that im-
portant. We were thrust out
with an earth shaking quake as
determinative of the future as
original sin and with that first,
painful, necessary gasp of air to
grab our first breath we want to
turn and dive right back in —
like standing before an O’Keeffe
in Santa Fe, New Mexico then ris-
ing off the ground, hanging above
it for a pregnant moment and diving
right past and through the peduncle,
receptacle, sepal, petal, stamen,
anther, pistil, stigma, ovary, vulva,
mons veneris, labia majora, labia
minora and plunging back into the
womb happily, giddily like a little kid
diving off the end of the dock at a
North Woods lake on a mid-August
evening and coming up snorting, spit-
ting, laughing, coughing and knowing
he is home.