Essay on Water

Like a sheet of glass—one wants to be 

inside it. Rain on the long walk home. Rain 

floodlighting the window or pooling off

the shoes in the doorway. I once believed 

water (as in “drinking”) differed somehow 

from water (as in “sea” or “fall”). 

One longs for category, to believe 

law depends on differentiation—

drops of water sliding down the window, 

for example. A simple equation: water plus surface 

equals movement: water plus sky equals 

blindness: water plus water equals dark.  

Equations must remain balanced, move 

ceaselessly toward being even, toward 

perfect ordinariness. Intending 

to pass through the field at dawn I arrived 

at a blank interface in which the air 

negated itself, the long grasses  

assumed absolute particularity

akin to selfhood. Kettles whistle. Ice flats 

creak and moan. Last winter I was apprenticed 

to an artist, made low reliefs from paper 

that dissolved in water. Mere suggestion 

of it in the air would cause the works 

to slouch or split. One chill Tuesday morning 

(snow outside), I arrived slightly blank 

(no coat) and dusted in snow which she brushed 

from my bare arms. Snow melted under her 

hands. This happens—collapsing

distance. Now a hypothetical: 

drop two seeds in a glass of water, see 

the lines of them blur, how the seeds become 

a case-in-point, see also the bathers learning 

pleasure—how they float and cling— 

bodies. Another hypothetical: 

pour the glass across the page and see

the delicate reversing—sequence

of invisible inward and outward 

motions—then set the upright glass outside,

the empty turning clear as rain arrives.