The long thin-handled edge
of the country, where many
have come to dip their
dipping cups and drink

from rivers diverted into
extreme long and lonely
farm-dedicated ditches,
from the pocketed geography
of blocked up Sierra streams:

how many ways we have
poured our water into
separate cups and worked
at ways to keep it from
its way of life-giving
and of natural flowing.

And now four spins
from the sweating sun,
our lake grounds cracking,
our ground tables slacking,
we must think how to suspend
our dippers, pour our
shared need back into
the source that kills
our thirst. Can we do
this as a people?

Share what is quickly
becoming scarce?
California, land that
brags of leadership--
can we show the world
a peaceable sipping?
All the rivers I ask
seem to answer never.