No light reaches the bottom,
so I can’t see what’s there, and
I can’t or won’t venture leaning for
a peek, its sides all mossy and slick.
If I fell again, I might not return.
I, a water witch for woe dug it,
led to its depths by a bending switch
of willow, each of us weeping,
but unbending in the joy of our
dark and damp discoveries.
I’ve kept all my memories within
this subterranean cylinder,
recollections of my collection
of people, places, feelings and
the compost of them all.
I drop my bucket and haul up
often muddy melanges, toss them
at this wall, and pray the mixed
what-was might express a what-is.
Sometimes I call down and listen
for the hollow return of my words,
each dripping with the mire of my life.
Occasionally, though, I’ll hear your voice,
something I thought lost at the bottom
where I left you, thinking I might forget you.
But no, it just takes longer for our echoes
to twine and climb the frayed rope
here in the well of never-never.
