Irrigation

Irrigation

If there's any elegance in life
it's in the way that water runs
from sky to spring and spring to field,
from field to field just for the fun

of it, or for the fullness of it
—a glut of needless elegance,
the thoughtless pooling up of pools
along the drive, the maintenance

of balance at the edges of
the pools, and of the field I suppose,
though that is a different kind of balance,
one that I maintain, in rows.

And speaking of balance, I lost mine today
in the earlier rain, leaning to weed
the carrots. I went down wet and empty-
handed, inelegant as need. 

NATHANIEL PERRY