When the well has run dry
it comes without warning.
The tongue swells in your cheek,
thick and livid, so that
your words no longer speak.
When the well has run dry,
you curse Providence for
this damming of the source
of such early growth. You
rail. Yet it is, of course,
when the well has run dry
that the real work begins.
This is the place you give
yourself to the long task
of learning how to live
when the well has run dry,
the daily love affair
with hardy words you kiss
into unlikely soil
to bloom up from the dust.
Penguin Poems 