Before the Mains

The mains came through in sixty-two

Every tap in the parish ran clean

The county men sealed the well with a plank

She lifted it off again at dawn

(Off at dawn)

Verse 1

One bucket every morning

Frost or rain

The parish calls her stubborn

Calls her odd

It stands on the ledge for whoever's lane runs dry

One tin cup down

One quiet nod

The moss wears smooth where forty palms have held

The rope runs true

The winding post stands fast

She never counts the years

She counts the wet

The water never asked

It never asked

Verse 2

The swifts come back above the shaft in May

They turn mid-air

They drink before they scream

A walker stops

He drinks

He sets it back

He nods

She shells her peas

She doesn't watch

The dust of the road goes down with one long pull

The bucket comes up heavy with the cold

She dries the rim

She hangs it on the hook

The ledge keeps one wet ring

It always keeps

Verse 3

I asked her why

She didn't lift her eyes

She said a tap is somebody else's plan

She said the mains go down when mains decide

She said a well obeys the rain

Not men

She said a village that forgets its water

Meets it again too late

I let that lie

I carried it home wrong

I carried it back right

I think of that plank now

Most nights

Most nights

Verse 4

The hard frost split the pipes from end to end

The whole street carried kettles in a queue

Her rope went up and down for eleven days

She drew for the lane

The lane remembers true

The well ran while the iron mains gave up

The cup went round like a hymn through a crowd

Nobody wrote it down

The stone wrote it down

The wear of eleven days is in it now

Bridge

She died one spring

The plank went back on top

The moss kept climbing over the coping stone

Last winter one storm brought the power down

The mains went down with it

What kept?

The well

I lifted the plank my own hands had nailed

I drew one bucket up

It hadn't aged

(The well)

Outro

The plank goes off at daybreak now

Not mine

Not hers

Whoever's early holds the rope

The cup is tin

The water's older than the parish

It never asked a thing

It never did

(Never did)