Maverick Mist

River Divide
(2007)
Wayne Thiebaud
Oil on canvas

WATER MUSIC
Sandra M. Gilbert
I. The Nature of Water

First, the clarity, those
molecules you go through and through,
and through you they go

in the long sift of blood.
And the shine goes through
as if something–you?–believes

in color, something stipulates
now blue, now what’s called
green or black. You think

you might name it landscape,
but it’s that utter
clearness, giving up

all ideas except reflection.
And then the changes, loose
and free to stiff, stiff

and still to shapeless
spirit of shape.
Do you bend today by the stream

that swivels through you?
Does it mark its currents on your skin?
Kneel in the rain and crook your fingers:

look! clear and changing
every minute
asteroids of still or shapeless

💧