In the morning when I turn the faucet on
all I see is laws being broken,
that the water’s been swindled,
trapped and force-led against its will;
that on loosening the valve, it storms out,
like school-children caged for the day,
finally bursting through double doors for play.
In reversals such as this
there are always casualties and
I rush to right the wrongs;
I lower the handle, adjust the flow
seeking an equilibrium suitable to all
and truths I don’t yet recognize
but will when I come to them.
Grandfather stops by. I want so much to tell him,
that he need not go for water today.
He smiles and his eyes in their simple way
say there are things I will never know:
his life, his times, truths and laws
that in words now simply say,
“Always I will go.”
He lifts the two tins, whose tops he has snipped off,
from grips he’s made of broomsticks and nailed on
and ambles for the ditch as if it’s the journey of a day
not the hundred yards or so. At the stream,
he bends and sets the cans down; he sits side-saddle on the bank,
reaches down and cups the river-water in his hand,
splashes it on to cool his face and looks around:
The Asia Minor War looming large and ever there;
four children lost to foreign lands;
daughter Rina, victim to the Disease…
the pain in his side brings him back;
days back some youths in scooters sped past,
and covered his donkey with dust so that it reared,
knocked him off and he broke a few ribs.
Ah! A thought… that teller at the bank
she’d make a good match for Christine’s boy.
Then… he has to write Chris about the olive crop this year…
who can he hire to pick the olives and prune the trees?
He fills the tins with water and starts back.
Every ten steps or so,
he sets the tins down, straightens,
looks around, takes the grove in, catches his breath.
Back at home, he follows a routine like a ceremony:
he reaches and checks that the copper spigot is shut;
then, trembling weakly, he lifts the pail
and pours to fill the half-moon basin
hanging from a nail on the indigo-washed wall.
For him, the water stays. There. All equal.
