Andrea Stuckey - The Water Pipe

A simple task, it should seem, and followed every day,
she stumbles over cobble to pump what she can carry.
The faucet, more beautiful than anything she owns
still gives her simple, ancient water and has never failed to dry.
The pipes freeze over Winter and melt once come the Spring;
she comes to pump the water that allows her family to live.
Although hardly ten miles outside Le Château Chillon,
the monotonous work and aching feet carry shackles,
though her chains are smaller than those of Bonivard.
If only Byron could write of this spigot and how
the marble has become overgrown with moss and
chokes the throat
of the spout.
The water the families depend on is seeping through the rock and
Back into the ground… returning to its mother, Geneva.
Ironic how mothers want to keep their children fostered.
The leaking, greedy, lovely faucet designed by the royalties of Chillon.
As they fawn, the woman fights to nourish her family.

Andrea Stuckey

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-water-pipe/