SO MUCH FOR PROGRESS

It could have been Saturday
when the pump quit,
cattle standing quizzically,

leaves in the garden limp
or a hundred and ten
in the shade with no breeze

to allow your thoughts to ride,
escape to a snowmelt stream
to sit beside instead.

Running water is a luxury
in the middle of all this dry,
a blond and brittle sea of grass

on clay and granite baked
beneath, radiating heat—
each canyon an oven

even the natives left
in the summertime.
So much for progress,

but when we were younger
we all knew how
to prime a pump.

                                        for JEG