Warm Water

Did you ever stop
to appreciate
warm water
across your hands?

When life’s
testing every
bit of you warm
water’s the balm.

A woman confided
with glee (to me)
I had a bath
I washed my feet!

So basic
so very simple
the soothing balm
of water warmed.

For a friend and anybody who would appreciate warm water. But there isn’t any.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

6 thoughts on “Warm Water”

  1. You’re so right. Hot water is one of the things we can so easily take for granted. I sometimes think a good soak should be obligatory before any decision that involves people. I was an enthusiast for onsen and ofuro when in Japan.

    in gassho

  2. When I was at middle school we HAD to be outside at break time unless it was raining (hard). In the winter it would be very cold and most kids would run about chasing balls but a few of us ‘soft kids’ would be in the toilet block (which was outside) with hands in a basins of warm water! I can smell the water vapour and cold concrete now! The warm would spread out like a balm against the icy wind. The school was demolished some years ago but this post took me straight back. And I guess there is a ballance in life around some kind of ‘warm water’ and accepting what is.

  3. You mean you had running water! In primary school, pre 11 years, for the first few years I was there the toilets were at the top of the playground with no running water (no flushing). Then a toilet block was built closer to the school building, but I can’t remember warm water running.
    Nice story from you though. I kept warm at play time by belting up and down the playground – I worked at NOT being a ‘soft kid’ although I probably qualified!

  4. Ay yes, the ritual hot bath. I never went to an onsen but have experienced the ofuro. In Zen there is a whole ritual around taking a bath…Bows, bath verse etc.

  5. Ours were outside & I believe were meant to flush but were constantly iced solid in winter. This is like the joke about living in a cardboard box in the middle of the road etc!

  6. Yes, yes, I thought that too.. although I recall it was a shoe box at the bottom of a lake! And we used to mine coal in 18″ seems in 2ft of water!

    Seriously though, we only had hot water at home once a week and I used to think it was great to have it on tap at school, even though I was often terrified at school.

Leave a Reply to Angie Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.