Aqueous Etymology

What percentage of our language is steeped in water?

Is it full like the earth?
Thin like the air?
Measured like our bodies?

Casting about for an answer has ended in a
wash.
Mysterious it should be
shrouded in such a
fog of confusion.

I waved
to the etymologists, buoyed
by their seeming interest, but they were too immersed
in their work, or drowning
in paperwork. “Utterly swamped!”
one of them apologized. Keeping afloat
with current
trends in academia can be so insoluble.

I was up a creek without a paddle,
but decided to plunge forth anyway.

Swelling with pride that I might be able to solve this
unfathomably deep question. Answering it might be a new
high water mark for my career!

In the end I was left adrift,
Floating at sea,
Unanchored.

In some way in the end,
The air smelled of rain, of spring, of worms.

Very fishy.

image: Tina Urso McDaniel 2011