Blind Pumper at the Well
Blind Pumper at the Well evokes the poet's awareness of modern life, his experience of war and the experience of others. An affirmation of a peaceful life, a life lived in harmony with Nature, and an evocation of love, that between men and women and that among all human beings, Blind Pumper at the Well also holds the poet's awareness of his 80 years of life and coming death.
Sample poem from Blind Pumper at the Well
A Killer Seeking Forgiveness
From where I will kill
a fellow creature, as
my Indian people have,
for generations, done,
I see
a porcupine,
its waddling body an ambulatory cactus,
which only the most benign intentions
of a poet’s tongue would even try to ease
into garden row or vase —
see pines,
which fought, like two of too many children,
for each other’s ration of sun,
and, now, the stronger lives on,
to gloat or to grieve —
and see,
disputing snow crimsoned by
some earlier hunter’s good fortune, crows,
as black as oil spilled by temblor
or greed’s heedlessness or war.
A sentinel crow is able to see, not me
but camouflaging leaves, from trees,
whose wood may heat someone’s home
and cook someone’s food eventually,
and, then, while wind weaves vines,
as if to mitten this trigger-finger hand,
my desperate family’s first meat,
after days of hunger, comes,
browsing some blossoms so
forgiving they are still enduring this freezing fall.