Poem of the month - July 2007

The Water Cycle

A hot day
A glass of cool water

I wonder
How old that water is?

Three minutes old
Poured from the tap?

Or older?

Three hours old
Drawn from the reservoir?

Or older?

Three days
Trapped as condensation
in grey clouds?

Three years
Swirling in the ocean or a great lake
Until the sun turned it into steam
And it rose invisibly up into the sky?

Or maybe three hundred years
Three thousand years
Three million years

Maybe that water
In the glass
Was once a cool refreshing drink
For a brontosaurus
Wandering along the shoreline
Of a prehistoric pool

So drink your glass of water

Enjoy it

And pass it on

by Roger Stevens
From Why Otters Don't Wear Socks , one of the Children's Poetry Bookshelf Summer 2007 Selected Books
Published by Macmillan
Click here to buy a copy of Why Otters Don't Wear Socks from the Poetry Bookshop Online