When clunks the bucket,

When tangles the rope,

When scrape the knuckles

On the elbow-jolting shallow draft

Of a sandy-bottomed well-spring bed.

An academic exercise:

Intermittent dehydration.

Frugal sipping from spearpoint sponge

To just sustain a bonsai man.

A glossy-skinned creature of the deeps

Approaching the theoretical frontier of dessication.

One can survive a surprising amount and

lose the water fat,

drop the water weight,

train for thirst.

Is the well lower than once it was?

Is the water less clear, or simply less?

May he dig? He would drill.

Irrigate? He would fill.

False. Not. Wrong. No.

False your sense.

And if true, then not this way.

And if this way, then wrong’s the time

And if right-timed, then no. No.

What do you know of hydrology?

The well

is the well is as well as may be.

As it is now.

The water table is low and spring bed cracked.

Midday is hot and evaporative losses

are significant given the state of the world

and the rise in global temperatures.

Try to have a more reasonable set of expectations.

And yet, unlooked for, a thief-in-the-night swell,

Artesianal burble, an ambrosial drink,

A dipped finger whisked ‘cross arid expanse

to cool a leaden tongue.

Enough to soothe,

Enough to make a pachinko parlor junkie

Of one so parched:

Another pull, another spin,

another fix, but when?

But oh, given chance, he would rain.

He would be such a thunderhead,

Many waters giving, deep fountains feeding,

bounty for the aquifer, enough and in abundance!

Flowing wide for the spilling and deep for the sounding!

Bucket gravid, plumbob rigid, rope untangled,

Open water where waves turn sweet,

Swimming and raining, drinking and swimming, raining and drinking

And drinking.

False. Not. Wrong. No.

False your hope.

And if true, then not your place.

And if your place, then wrong’s the aim

And if right-aimed, then no. No.

Bloody smile, skin chapped, lips crack,

Foxen eyes, mousehole fixed,

Diamond glint, and is the well to fill?

Gulp of grit.

Ah, well…

Mud is wet, and some have only dust.