What well will we draw from now?

A poem

Now when the wind blows from the barren North
when waking to dry days like aged pine boards creaking
in the abandoned settler cottage we never pulled down,
I ask with rasping throat which well will we draw
from now?

We have drilled so deep into the very core of the land
as if it was never planned to go without in the droughts
of July, we dug so deep to crack the soil in mad patterned
mud flats like shattered glass where only old bones go
their bony cages a lyre for the north winds fire

Which well will we draw from now as the child's eyes
stare at the empty plates and fates finger shows us the
door to leave in ancient truck to try our luck in the West
where promises like ripe oranges fall in plenty while cherubs
sing of all the beauty Nature brings…

Who will sing our songs ? I wonder now only because the strings
are rusted and will not carry a note or even a ragged tune
which well I prayed until my knees buckled and the rain came
only in dust and weeds spinning like crazy parasols on a beach,

We teach we instruct we shout to the rafters but in my dry laughter
I know we never learn , we never ever learn.

Chris Papps 2022

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