From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxj!mhuxv!burl!sb1!ll1!ihldt!ihnp4!ihuxv!portegys
Newsgroups: net.poems
Title: Filling a bucket
Article-I.D.: ihuxv.427
Posted: Tue Jan 11 21:43:10 1983
Received: Thu Jan 13 06:47:45 1983
Reply-To: portegys@ihuxv.UUCP (Tom Portegys)

               Filling a bucket


I filled a bucket
Not long ago.
In a rush, I needed that bucket fast.
It was a single letter
In a novel I had planned.
It was a draft of air
In a windstorm I was stirring.
It had no right to take so LONG to fill.

Halfway full I knew it would never finish.
A fiendish illusion had grown real:
Water flowed up into the faucet to confound me.
It splashed and roiled merrily on,
But got no fuller.

It was playing a game -
It would be no one's thoughtless pawn;
No one's fool.
And down deep in that well
Those laughing liquid curtains fell,
So I propped me up on my elbows
And watched it fill.


              Tom Portegys, BTL IH, ...ihuxv!portegys