Midwest Palimpsest

Despite recent downpours, the empty plastic bucket
   in which I carry fresh water to the chickens 

makes a sharp sound when I drop it
   on the ground, reach to turn on the spigot

which tells me the earth is still thirsty
   the way anyone would be, long drought
      absence of gentleness,

of rain pattering all day, that intimacy.
   A thunderstorm’s brief outburst isn’t enough

to water deeply or soften the earth,
   nor, I imagine, to replenish the Teays,

underground river written over by glaciers,
   a palimpsest of artesian wells springing up

from below, river I mapped in fourth grade
   Indiana history class, tracing tributaries,
      my hand gliding over tracing paper 

laid over the map below, tracing the antediluvian
   history of this place without knowing I was mapping
      the source of the well from which

my children would someday drink, its current audible
   when the well cap was removed to replace the pump
      after a lightning strike.

Cold, clear water gushes from the spigot, still. My children
  grown, I carry a sloshing bucket to the chickens,
      path my boots have traced in the parched grass.