WATER

after the storm

It is absolutely bucketing down. Noisy pounding thunderstorm rain on a true vertical and everything outside is refracted in a morphing sheet of water-glass. I wish I could filter out the sound of its impact, or levitate to a height where all I heard was the sound of itself with its accelerating purpose vibrating the air.

Here I am with the dogs watching the life source fall from the sky. The more I think about it the more I realise I've never thought about it before. Not really. A few minerals aside, it is all we are - bags of water held together by atomic forces not even strong enough to keep us swapping little bits with each other, perceptions being the tricksters that they are.

It is what they look for when they look for evidence of life - the only clue, the clincher, the absolute necessity - water.

I suddenly understand the worship of rivers and remember now Philip Adams interview with Jessica Weir last week about her book 'Murray River Country'. I don't suggest she is talking about river worship, but her explanation of the urgent need to reconfigure the black white interface and for all to see the river in its living light was compelling. I was born on the Murray and didn't ever learn of the place or its meaning. But I'm glad I was born there.