Happy Birthday dear William! This post is a gift for and celebration of a friend of many years. We met in 1992 at Schumacher College (center for ecological and spiritual studies in Devon, UK), where I took part in a 3-week course entitled the 'Greening of Medicine' by Dr Patrick Pietroni.
I ended up returning to Schumacher for a 6-month sabbatical. William has remained working there ever since. I'm glad about that. And I'm glad to still have his wonderful friendship. Here are two of his poems for me - referencing water of course. As you'll see, he has a zany and refreshing style which lifts me out of taking my life too seriously or into taking it more seriously, as needed!
The first poem was derived from an email he sent to me when I returned from the US to the UK in some disarray in spring 2007 following a dramatic turn in my marriage. He's writing of some severe spring flooding in England that year. I couldn't resist turning the text, with a little editorial licence, into a poem. The second is a poem he sent for my own birthday this past 14 July.
Glad you touched the maelstrom (Sara after William Thomas)
High on a hill
and well above the bottom
of the Nidd valley
the water takes another route
and there is a stone wall
It is the flood plains
which are in difficulties
must be very nasty
for people who live there
I saw a middle-aged woman
saying "something must be done"
but I fear the elements will
be felt in times to come
Spent several nights there
but don't really like it
I can't relate to it
can't find where to hang
I'll move back for winter
the sun, moon and chestnut tree
find these elemental presences
are of primary value to me
Suspect your predicament will
continue to feel strange yet
maybe all of life is strange
and all people also strange
I used to think of normal people
and mavericks, but not any more
events like these wash away
the illusion of normality
I saw a film about it which
was quite thought-provoking
and stretched the skeptic's
point of view severely
I'll look out a copy for you
And ... perhaps something else
which is somewhat overdue
keep in touch and let me know
Water, clear water (William Thomas)
This morning I was tidying the
scullery,
and I found a full thermos flask.
I knew it was full,
owing to its weight.
Its heft, its mass, its great number of
pounds, ounces and grams,
All mixed together.
The lid and cap
were screwed on.
What was in it?
Normally, abandoned thermoses
either have the caps off,
Or are empty.
Someone didn't get
their coffee.
They heaved it a great distance all day long,
A
silent bulk in their pack, full of the promise of refreshment.
But
late in the day the promise faded, and finally died.
Back at the
college it was obsolete,
its value eclipsed by the presence of a
drinks machine.
Or, great Scott! It couldn't be......
my own
thermos from last weekend could it?
I usually make an extra coffee
to take into the garden,
But I may have become distracted and not
drunk it.
Now it would be foul and rancid.
The stainless
steel...stained.
I would have to brush it, rinse it, brush it,
rinse it
And moreover, scrub the stopper.
And moreover, remove
the rubber O ring and scrub behind it,
And scrub minutely the O
ring itself.
The enormity of the task poses a test of
character:
Should I engage with both the thermos and the task,
Or
should I walk away, abandon both and all?
A twice-abandoned
thermos, harbouring a secret, a story,
a brief preciousness lost
in a great redundancy.
In that moment I found myself equal to the
task -
Perhaps I had slept well.
I unscrewed cap, unscrewed
stopper
Peered in, and gasped.
Water, clear water, nothing
more.
Not even tea, nor one of the soggy leaf
infusions
Participants leave around to torment me.
Had this
water once been hot? It must have been.
But why, why, why?
Was
it destined to be consumed as water,
Or to be added to
something?
Its destiny was neither.
The sun that shone on the
leaf
The leaf that nourished the tree
The ground that received
the trunk
The funghi that broke it apart
The sediments that
buried it deep
The bacteria that released its methane
All the
armies of machinery that extracted it
The grinding cogs that were
driven by its burning
To turn great magnets and produce
current
That flowed through the circuits of our Lincat EB4
Had
finally come to this:
Cold water, just as it began.
Just as it
had always been, since it first arrived, perhaps on a comet.
Star
water, clear water, universal water.
After such a journey,
It
deserved better than to be poured into the sink,
It deserved at
least to quench a thirst or water a plant.
But I poured it into
the sink just the same.
I am sorry.
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