Dear Thirst
Water came before thirst, before sand, the sea, before the tide, the moon, and sun before Earth. Bodies lived before love, and tender leaves before a body ate—raw food before the age of fire. Death came seconds after life, but some life won’t die— a colony of sea grass older than the marsh that roots it, a fungus in Oregon larger than a blue whale. Fish drown in oil, seeds mutate, a bird falls from acid skies— the soul needs a soul- making vale, the lion a grass- fed lamb. Dear thirst, dear life, dear lack—before desire, the planet was no gorgeous world, Eden no poem, the tale no Troy, Helen a girl herding goats.