Best Hopewater Poems
(I wote this after seeing an older man laboriously carrying water in a bucket and
watering his small corn plants one-by-one. The field was large and the task seemed
to me to be hopeless. But he was doing all that he had at his disposal to save his
crop from drought.)
Hope Springs Eternal
By Elton Camp
There is something about this man to inspire
That he is doing what he can is much to admire
He diligently turned and planted corn in his field
With the hope that a bountiful crop it would yield
He fertilized and carefully kept the weeds away
As he cultivated his precious corn day by day
The seeds soon sprouted and the plants grew
But the needed rains proved to be far too few
And though the prospects indeed look very bleak
Buckets of water he wearily totes from the creek
It may seem useless, but it’s all he knows to do
But it’s a task so large he may never get through
He pours water to this one, the next, then more
As the farmer does his seemingly endless chore
Back and forth to the creek he goes to fill his pail
With the hope that better weather will soon prevail
It would be easy to give up and angrily curse his fate
To surrender all of his future to total despair and hate
But to do a thing like that is not this good man’s way
He chooses to continue to fight, work and often pray