[ɪ] wind [ʌ/ ʊ] moss [ɒ] pump [i:] keep [əʊ] stone [e/ eə:] well [ai] child

[ʊə/ u/ u:] roots [au] now [æ] crash [ɔː/ ɔɪ ] board [ɑ:] dark

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As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.

I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.

So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.

When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch,
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one

Was scaresome for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,

To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme

To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.