James Moore Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

The Oasis

I live in an oasis
One formed by the power of electricity
To pump day and night 
From The River.
Day and night everyone along its shores
Waters their crops and yards, gardens and fields.

In the few years I’ve lived here 
I’ve planted almost 500 trees and shrubs
To transform an old alfalfa field
Into a thicket of greens
Haven for mice and snakes, birds and bees.

Every day I faithfully reroute the irrigation
So that in a week it all gets watered.
If I don’t within just a few weeks 
Everything would stop growing
And within just a few months
Everything would be dead.

It’s sobering to realize how tenuous our hold
On a place is.
Without electricity this whole farming valley
Would dry up and wither away.
With electricity, coming in fact from the water itself,
It is an oasis of life, calm and green
Filled with the joy of birds and bees
Humans and their trees.

My own place in it is temporary of course
But someone will come after
To keep the pumps going
Keep the sprinklers flowing
Until they don’t
And this moment in time is forgotten
As all things must be.

(5/5/26)

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