Email Poem

Your IP Address: 18.222.21.218

Your Email Address:

To Email Address:

Subject

Personal Note:

Poem Title:

Poem

Henry’s Rust Bucket

He had managed the steep rise from a valley to his home and sat on the small 

stoep. Another koppie towering ahead, he looked straight forward and counted 

his blessings. One, by one he wrote a list of thanksgivings, carefully folded the 

scraps of paper, then crumbled them up and darted them into a corroded pail of 

collection. Always a good shot, it filled. A little water still in the bucket, ink 

smudged and ran its course as thoughts nudged each other and the sludge pot 

thickened. Soon it was far more full than half empty, the cache of paper-mache 

almost burst from its seams. When memos and ‘done it’ notes oozed through a 

hole at the bottom, scraped through and lifted his mood and the bucket, Henry 

the cooper hardly kept up with the fill. The tub rose and time passed so slowly 

that it turned in rebuttal, as the container had been really a scuttle for carbon 

and coal, a near enough copy to hold passion and fire. So, elevated and so 

imposing it became that it shaded the koppie. ‘Enough is enough’, I must move 

on and rise to occasions. Remember the past and the present.’ Thus, he changed 

perspective and stood on the bucket. It still had a hole and his steps had gone 

rusty, but now he could touch the mountains again. Henry had so much to be 

grateful for, even with a half empty bucket, that just one or two ‘post it’s’ would 

have surely sufficed. ‘Never late than not ever’ he exclaimed, ‘I must fix the hole 

in my bucket, gratitude list will only get me so far’.



Contest New Year 2018 A Better Production
Sponsor Kim Rodriques

CAPTCHA Preview

Type the characters you see in the picture

Required