BELLA AQUA

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Spill. Splurge. Swilker.

We splosh. We slop. We slurp.

O Bella Aqua! Wondrous water!

Today we keep you prisoner,

Aerate you not by thrilling plunge

Cascades where you can shimmer,

Shiver, shatter, shine in rainbow,

But by brutal blasts of CO2

In plastic bottles a-fizz with death,

Drunk by our drunken

Toxic passing foibles,

Seething our sludge of poison

Back to Mother Ocean.

As river we pollute you

With our casual cast-off,

Our heaving landfill

Shores up sea defences

Against the tide of taint

We've boiled and brewed,

Seeping and leaching

Through the thirsty land.

Casual we jerk the tap

To drain your flood and flow

At every blindfold whim of wastefulness.

Bless your primordial founts and fonts,

Your chuckling wellsprings,

Mirrors of genesis,

That we once honoured

As our liquid life,

Vital as breath,

We lapped with silence on our lips.

Instead we have abandoned

Your secret sacred surging

To nodding donkeys

And the fissures of frack.