Water

for the Oxford Twestival 2009, in Aid of the Water & Sanitation programme in Mali.

Water is life, water is death,

Water brings food, but takes away breath.

First there are torrents which carry off men,

Then we pray for it again.

We give people water, they piss it away;

They piss in the river where children play.

It buds mosquitos and carries disease,

But holds of the sun by feeding the trees.

Water flows white, brown, and henna-red;

It keeps the dust down, keeps the cattle fed.

A boy washes in four cups of it,

Yet you use six cups just to flush your shit.

You tell me it’s dull, spit it down the sink;

Here death comes at forty for lack of a drink.

© Ellen McAteer