The Wind Pump
Vincent Hostak
June 30, 2024
Gusting across a flat, dry plain,
a design unbroken until El Capitan’s rise,
and having reached the Place of the Late Sunset,
the wind looks for a spot to rest.
“Cast your burden here, there’s plenty of room”
say the vanes of a lone wind pump.
It is a lie, there’s no rest to be found here.
You must always work to draw the water,
pierce the pores to find the long-lost lakes.
The next tallest structure is a retired reef,
a clash of copper against persistent blue,
the ancient work of creatures, minute and tender,
layered into throngs in the sea.
The land works deep into dusk:
scree scuttles down a beveled crest,
it joins the pulse of this whirling time.
With creaking blades and aeolian sigh,
the wind pump heaves into its second shift.
Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.
