Pumpjack

In burnt fields following spring fires,
drought grips the hard-land
with grey hands that must be pried from
flowered sheets stiff with fearsome sweat.

In this pastoral desolation, monks
chant the dry hours. Their long, cowled heads
pray over flapping pages of dirt and weed
as the eternal wheel spins behind their knees

and a long, taut cable keeps the measure of beats
binding each monk’s brain to a hole in the ground:

Rock petrus petrol

Petrus rock petrol

Petrol  petrus rock

O
core
graciously
hear us.

© 2011 David A. Welch