Though I ignore my geological past

As if out of sight is out of mind,

I have remembered the water-table

That under all, not far down, never

To be seen by man, we live or die of.

Three grandparents lived into my time,

And my three children will outlast mine.

My father died before my first wife,

My mother before my second had our son.

I have buried all the sins, not all

The virtues, bought food, made books.

I have forgotten, I have wasted, I

Survive my sources and my given selves.

The waters of earth rise in the earth.

They seep flatwise between rock-layers,

Leak into closed caves, drench ground,

Meet rivers, tides, and rain sieved down,

And stand agreed at the place and time

For a wetted floor under the carpet

We scrape at, build on, name, and own.

They say there's enough water underground

To cover the world a half mile deep.

Rivers move in that dark. Oceans.

Life of no shape we know hangs there.

Wet. Wet. The everlasting slow waters.

I tore a hole twice my height deep

At the foot of the hill back of my house,

And watched the bottom dampen, then fill,

Then stop, and that was the water-table.

Floor. Table. Carpet. What helpless names.

I might as well bite my arm, the blood

Comes from the whole body of the world.

I never lift water to my mouth now

But I bury my face in flood, and drink.