Acqua Vitae - May 11 2022

 

Acqua Vitae

May 11 2022

The things you only notice when they're gone.

Like water

at the turn of a tap

as hot or cold as you want.

But when when the rains failed

and the sun burned hotter

and the dry ground

cracked, subsided, collapsed,

the flow eventually slowed

sputtered, coughed

before it stopped cold;

no matter how hard I reamed the faucet,

how long I stood

forehead furrowed, head cocked

staring hard

bewildered and alarmed.

I remember hauling buckets.

How heavy they were.

How the thin wire handles

dug into my skin.

How every step

the rim hit my legs

and water sloshed over me.

I remember the back bay

with the muddy bottom.

The rotten smell bubbling-up

through brown stagnant water,

grotesque weeds

choking the surface

like a noxious green malignancy.

And I remember cold hard rain

and pelting hail

in gale-force wind.

But this,

when the one thing

essential for life

is nowhere to be found

was inconceivable.

Our beautiful blue and green planet

a moonscape

another Mars.

So we drilled deeper

confessed our sins

rationed-out less and less,

but nothing helped.

Hell on earth

with nowhere else to flee.

Before writing the poem, I had just read this, lifted from an article about finding dead bodies — likely drownings, but more sensationally, mob hits! — on the dried-up bottom of Lake Mead.

. . . the surface of Lake Mead has dropped more than 52 metres since 1983. The lake that slakes the thirst of 40 million people in cities, farms and tribes across seven southwestern states is down to about 30 per cent of capacity (Globe and Mail, May 11 2022).

It inspired the opening line, which I initially thought might lead to something amusing, surprising, then touching: a list of the things we take for granted, from the mundane and unseen to the profound. Because we have almost too much water here — in this favoured place, where peace and abundance reign — (at least we do this winter and spring), and don't think twice about turning on the tap.

But instead of expanding on that premise, found myself stuck on water. And so the poem instead became a dystopian screed on climate change. The picture actually is Lake Mead, taken Monday May 9 2022 (Getty Images). I guess without the human remains, climate change doesn't merit newspaper articles. Even when a lake turns into a desert landscape like this!

I was able to call back to my own direct experiences of a dry tap: once, when my pump died, and another couple of times dry wells. That bewildered look and disbelieving double-take are real!