Hello Everyone- Linda Lee Lyberg here and I will be your guest host for Tuesday Poetics at the Pub. Today I’m serving up water, and anything with water. In honor of our subject matter, our special tonight is a spiked strawberry lemonade, made with lemons, strawberries, sugar, vodka, and you guessed it-  your choice of water- still or sparkling. So stop in, have a refreshing drink and let’s dive right in!

Did you know:

• There is the same amount of water on Earth as there was when the Earth was formed. The water from your faucet could contain molecules that dinosaurs drank.
• Water is composed of two elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen. 2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen = H2O.
• Nearly 97% of the world’s water is salty or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2% is locked in ice caps and glaciers. That leaves just 1% for all of humanity’s needs — all its agricultural, residential, manufacturing, community, and personal needs.
• Water regulates the Earth’s temperature. It also regulates the temperature of the human body, carries nutrients and oxygen to cells, cushions joints, protects organs and tissues, and removes wastes.
• 75% of the human brain is water and 75% of a living tree is water.
• A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.
• Water is part of a deeply interconnected system. What we pour on the ground ends up in our water, and what we spew into the sky ends up in our water.
• The average total home water use for each person in the U.S. is about 50 gallons a day.
• The average cost for water supplied to a home in the U.S. is about $2.00 for 1,000 gallons, which equals about 5 gallons for a penny.
• Water expands by 9% when it freezes. Frozen water (ice) is lighter than water, which is why ice floats in water.

(Source: https://www3.epa.gov/safewater/kids/waterfactsoflife.html )

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” – W. H. Auden

Water gives life to humans, plants, animals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, insects, the earth, the atmosphere.

As poets, we write about water in all its forms- snow, ice, drips, trickles, raindrops, rainstorms, oceans, lakes, creeks, seas, teardrops, sweat, fog, sea mist, steam, vapor, etc.

Here is a fantastic short poem about water:

The Pool

BY H. D.

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

Then there is one of my favorite movies- the cinematography is stunning and surreal. ‘The Shape of Water’

Here’s another poem- by D.H.Lawrence

Autumn Rain

The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;

The cloud sheaves
in heaven’s fields set
droop and are drawn

in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face

falling – I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace

Heaven’s muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain

of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain

caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain

now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible

of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.

To read a short analysis of the poem, you can go here.

PHOTO:  Pixabay

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

So today, fellow poets I want you to write about life sustaining water, in any of its three forms- solid, liquid, or gas.

You may write in any form you choose, this is a Poet’s choice prompt.

I look forward to reading your lovely thoughts!

About our guest host: