A reflection on H2O by Budapest-born George Szirtes who came with his family to Britain as an eight-year-old refugee after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.
Szirtes is featured in In Person: 30 Poets, an anthology to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Bloodaxe Books. The poets are shown reading the material in two DVDs which are included free with the book itself. The anthology, with its innovative dimension, is officially published next Thursday at £12.

Water

(from three Poems for Sebastiao Salgado)

The hard beautiful rules of water are these:
that it shall rise with displacement as a man does not, nor his family. That it shall have no plan or subterfuge. That in the cold, it shall freeze; in the heat, turn to steam. That is shall carry disease and bright brilliant fish in river and ocean.
That it shall roar or meander through metropolitan districts whilst reflecting skies, buildings and trees.

And it shall be clean and refresh us even as we slave over stone tubs or cower in a shelter or run into the arms of a loved one in some desperate quarter where the rats too are running. That it shall have dominion. That it shall arch its back in the sun only according to the hard rules of water.