REQUIEM FOR THE CANADA WELL

by Tricia Knoll

in memory of Rachel Corrie

Lying semi-conscious… is nine-year-old Yunis Jumaa, who has cerebral palsy… His mother Ghanima says eight months of war have dramatically worsened his health. "When he developed this malnutrition and dehydration, he became as you see him now," she says. "There is no bottled water. The children walk a long distance—when they get water it reaches us contaminated," she adds. —BBC, June 21, 2024

On Friday, I discovered a video posted on Instagram by an Israeli soldier from the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, showing the calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah…The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists. —Younis Tirawi, Portside, July 29, 2024

To know the land, dig for water.
An angel found Hagar at the well.
Stories told of Rebekah and the women
coming together where the pool stills,
the well fills in slow rising. To find
stillness and life. Safe haven. Give me
something cool to drink. I will love you.
Be my oasis. Honor the flow of vows. 
This is the spirit of life. 
 
And now, quiet municipal services:
no sirens. No flashing lights. Backhoes
attending to unanticipated main breaks,
diggers repairing the aftermath 
of earthquakes. Repair. Filter. Deliver. 
 
Villains poison the well.
Cruelty blows it up—
we are told from old times
women gather
to carry water home
again and again
going to the well. 

Tricia Knoll worked for a municipal water utility for fifteen years, including emergency response to New Orleans following Katrina to help restore drinking water service. In 2024, two new poetry books were published: Wild Apples (poems of downsizing and moving 3,000 miles to Vermont) and The Unknown Daughter (27 poems of voiced personas responding to a Tomb of the Unknown Daughter).

PILGRIMAGE TO EMILY DICKINSON'S HOUSE ON NINETY-TWO DEGREE SUMMER DAY

by Laura Rodley

What would Emily say? The driveway to her brother Edward’s home

is gated, the property surrounded with orange crisscrossed plastic

fencing, plastic not yet invented in her time, nor the cure for her kidney

ailments. Today her condition would have been aggravated by the chlorine

and other astringent agents the town uses to clean the water pumped

to the homes. She would have drunk water from an artesian well

in her Victorian home, writing poems at two a.m., loving someone

she could not have, not from the future, but from her own time period.

Was she ever pregnant as some suggest? Was she virginal as her white

dresses? Did she actually suffer from hypertension? Was she able

to see the future? Her poems crossed realms of time and space.

Would she have cut the crisscrossed orange fence, crushed it down,

or felt more secure to be enclosed, secure in her hermitage

peopled with family, cooks, and Irish workmen, six of whom carried

her casket to her grave in West Cemetery, where she walked in the evenings.

She was nourished by a garden that is no longer open to the public

due to Covid. A garden that fed her, kept her poetry

alive, already passed through the gates into other’s hands through letters.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.

YOU SHOULD WRITE A POEM, YIAYIA—MY GRANDCHILDREN TEXT ME

by Pamela Devereaux Wilson

our well stopped working five days ago
i hand-pump water from storage containers
boil for cleaning, food prep and drinking
flush toilet with a pail

the physical work, breathing hazardous wildfire ash
that coats and clogs my mask as temperatures reach 80
advised to stay indoors but i pray best under the old apple tree
today we are told we have the worst air quality in the world

500,000 people, a tenth of Oregon's population, evacuated
when they go home, will they find piles of smoldering ash
where their lives were once lived and fulfilled
22 missing at least 10 dead

millions of acres of Oregon's Cascades blackened for years
i may never see it green again nor walk forests of wade rivers
when rains come, hillsides will flow into rivers—crisis within crisis

many are water insecure - travel miles for water
dwindling or polluted sources
greed, corruption—survive every day without potable water

drenched in this heat, breathing ash-filled air
my dog won't go outside
my head aches constantly—i don't have water—I can't breathe

in tears i rage—i can't fix anything for anyone right now
do you know how much five gallons of Costco water costs

so i haul, pump, boil, cool and pour water
write this poem for my hopeful grandchildren
full of spunk, promise and joy yet I shall not
share the despair this poem sings --
                                                                                             without clean water
                                                                                          without breathable air life
                                                                                              stutters stumbles dies

Pamela Devereaux Wilson lives on acreage north of Corvallis in the Luckimute Watershed. There she gardens, continues to learn about herbal medicine and writes. As she ages, changes, uninvited and unforeseen have begun to shape her writing but the influence of her grandchildren has been a steady force.