dowser

 dowser

water: no matter how much, there's till not enough.

Cunning life keeps asking for more and then a drop more.

                                                                Marin Sorescu

what sounds then draws your water long

    before the ground is split, shoulder

    shudder come up from the withers 

    like a fly's six whispering feet ripple

or water's top taken off, driven spade

    hand driven thirst tongue and brain.

    what coming up is a thumb or thimble

    sheathed middle finger easing

the needle through two or more overlay

    of blankets or cuffs of pants above

    the next-to-lowest eye-hole of

    the nearly new work-boot, like a ruler,

inch by inch, or what's thrust up

    by genetics or need or both, the seed

    in the pitch of the earth.  what, pray

    do yo prefer: a spirit

level to the stone you're going 

    to have to go through humble

    as the first time the hazel branch    

    was laid one right one left

in the pockets of your palm then

     drew all the water from your tongue

    first so that when you touched the edge

    of your lip with it it might've stuck

like a lodestone and then drawn off

    all it could before  turning loose

    a dirge or blessing, words that whet

    the edge before what's struck 

is struck, where the stick plummeted

    suddenly, just like Seamus Heaney said

    it would if you touched it with 

    the him still gripped.