Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WATER by JOSEPH AUSLANDER

Poet Analysis

First Line: WATER REMEMBERED, TREASURED UP
Last Line: BREATHING BREAD.
Subject(s): WATER;
Water remembered, treasured up;
Water that has never touched an earthen cup;
Held only in the creased hollow of a hand,
Trickling through, flickering silver, furrowing black sand;
Water tapped at the source
Of cool damp precincts moving without force,
Even and quiet and confident and clean
With all the beauty of some suave machine --
These things, these phrases wrenched themselves softly loose
Like young tulip bulbs or the inside grass spear whose
Rootless white green end is sweet to suck:
So the phrases filtered through, light struck,
Pulled loose from the intricate loam of thought and spaced
Themselves because you laughed, and got unlaced
Because you laughed at something that I said . . .
Your laughter was like water -- not drink only, but drink and dark-grained deep-
breathing bread.



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