Classic Poem

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 damp cool 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 merely, but drink and dark-grained deep-breathing bread.