The Water Pump

The Water Pump

I heard it on the radio, maybe last year,
perhaps a decade ago. But there was a water pump
in the backyard of a farm in the Ozarks,
red paint peeling from the combination of rust and time.
I saw it in my memory, over a century ago,
how the children’s muscles burned straining against
the handle embedded with fingerprints at least half
a dozen
generations old.

It was always summer,
that’s when grandparents took their family
to Missouri to visit Aunt Bess and the kids.
So the oldest grandson,
wanting to try new things
leaned hard against the water pump to
see how it worked, and finally felt the handle
move toward the ground while he rode it like a
hobby horse.

It was sweaty heat and his green t-shirt stuck
to his wiry arms. He was used to turning a tap
and drinking water from a hose hidden in the shade.
But the pump delivered nothing; no air, no noise,
no encouragement, no instructions for the city boy.

Pushing until he shivered, he moved the pump down,
up, down,
up, down,
up. He lost count and nearly lost time.

But the nozzle finally spit and mumbled like a colt,
then trickled the cool spring water at his feet.
Exhausted and curious, he cupped his hands and brought
the welcome liquid to his lips. He did not think he
had tasted anything sweeter, and he had brought it up
from beneath the earth with his own perspiring effort.
He doused his hair, his face, his shirt and ran

To see if he could catch another trout in his
great-uncle’s fishing pond again.