I remember those days
After the storms came
Playing in amongst the damson trees
Watching the rainwater
Come pouring off the hill
Creating its own streams
Coursing down across the soil
And trickling across exposed roots
Never at rest, yet holding a shape
Turning miniature streams into rivers
Diverting and directing
The ever evolving present flow
Of the torrents of rain
Building miniature dams
Watching the ebb and flow of tiny moving streams
Seeing without understanding
The difference between laminar and turbulent flow
The smooth curves buffeted into tiny puffs of foam
Swinging hither and yon
Against a child’s artificial earthen barriers
Before running on and soaking
Into parched soil and thirsty drains
Does water have a memory?
Does it know where it has flowed before?
Recalling the infinite shapes it has taken?
All the while in motion across the earth?
Are the seas the planets memory banks?
Vast oceans that hold the knowledge
Of a billion lifetimes
Gone in the blink of an eye
A heaving mass of water
Encircling our green planet like a cloak
Lifted to the heavens in evaporated droplets
Collected across the skies to fall again
Running across the dry land
To find its way back home to the ocean
How can this remember?
Everything that has ever been
And will ever be?
Or is there only now?
Do all the oceans
Only ever exist in
The present
© Simon Jolly 2022