My Father's Pump
Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 08:47:34 PM PDT
[editor's note, by PoliSigh] Promoted by me.
We're on our way home after spending the week in Texas with my father (77 years old with bad heart, stroke and leukemia). We're halfway to Wisconsin - tucked in for the night at a Super 8 outside of Kansas City -- and Dad is heavy on my mind. It's more than a father-son connection. It has to do with a spiritual connection. Perhaps with an historical, nurturing, spiritual thread that runs centuries back and as far as we can see forward...
He's a retired pastor from a fundamentalist denomination that made Jerry Falwell look like a secular liberal humanist commie -- and he's the closest thing I've ever seen to a living, breathing example of the grace of God and love of Christ. The focus of his ministry never seem to fit the cold-hearted and small-minded denomination that ordained him, centered as it was on the word "compassion." His imprint on me -- my character, my values and my faith -- is as profound as it is permanent.
Unable (perhaps unwilling?) to spell it out in psycho-social terms, here it is in poetic form. You with ears, here; you with eyes, see.
My Father's Pump
The path from porch to well was worn by years
of steady use, although the house could boast
of running water long ago. The neck
and handle—rough with age--stood hard against
the gentle garden colors just beyond.
She watched him haul the buckets, one a side
to keep his balance, and shook her head. "The need
to carry pails from outdoors in has passed."
He stopped, a foot atop the lower step,
and smiled at her. "I suppose that’s true," he said.
He reached the upper step and sat beside
her, put the pails aside, and held her hand
in his.
Her fingers weaved with his and held.
"It was your father’s pump," she said. "I know."
And then: "Some needs long met can be let go."
"It’s still my father’s pump," he said. "That’s why
I carry water even now. Some needs
long met—those freely, fully met--become
a thing apart, perhaps become a love."
She looked at him anew and said, "It’s not
unlike the two of us."
"The water’s cool
and sweet when drawn so deep," was all he said.
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