Prayer in Water

Face down in deep water,

I swim hard for the other side and pray.

I cleave blue water and express gratitude for my life

for all life.

I stroke supple water and offer my prayer of gratitude

for beauty, for love, for water.

Water sustains me,

sustains beauty.

Water sustains life.

Water sustains me. I soar above the earth.

Prayers of gratitude flow easily through me

like active water flowing through life

with tumbling, murmuring sounds of prayers

of gratitude.

Bottom of the pool below me, below blue water,

is blue concrete

but connects me with every time in water,

clean gravel of the Blue River when I stroked hard

through icy currents and reached for warm sunshine

of the green-grassed, tree sustaining bank above me,

clean sand of the American River, lazy in late summer sunshine,

Ingalls Creek, where we built a rock dam for depth enough to swim,

stood naked as sunshine on the shore

and watched The Strawberry Mountains eat summer sun.

Little Butte Creek hurried down its steep-sided canyon, 

while we built new romance on a secluded, small

rock and sand beach, briefly cooled our ardor in clean water,

patient with anticipation, plunged deep into each other,

into currents, into clean flowing water, stirred gravel

like wild fish fertilizing futures for species.

All water becomes one, flows together in reverence for the future of life.

All prayers of gratitude become one, flow together in reverence for life.

All Gods become one, receive prayers of gratitude with reverence for water

for life, flow together with powerful currents toward a clean future

for water, for species, for life.