Messenger photo by Joe Duty

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” – Carl Sagan

Clear, pure water pours from bottle to glass. Mute translucence fades into vague backgrounds as light glints off liquid motion.

Water flows silent beneath us, drifts above us, courses through us. Water brushes the world over creating a liquid-covered planet floating like a precarious sphere of ice through black void. The earth itself is but a splash of water in a cup. There’s nowhere to go outside the round rim of atmosphere. The need to maintain the purity and cleanliness in our watery lifeboat is paramount.

Our roaming photographer captured the simple task of water being poured into a glass at a New York City restaurant. The simplicity of the image and the motion of the water captured his eye. The lens is focused on the water in motion, allowing the rest of the composition to fade to blur. The black emptiness in the top right third allows gives the eye a place from which to wander.

The pure liquid respite captured in a safe confine of solid fragile glass mimics our tiny splash of life in a vast, harsh cosmos.