Water

There was a fountain
that flows out in the hillocks
where cold fresh water
sprayed up bubbling and pure.

No borehole water that tastes like mud
or that which streams metallic out of a pipe
and still less the city’s
purified liquid
in which the chemicals are still drifting white,

could smell and taste
like water which comes out of the heart
of the earth
and washed pure by thousands of rocks
splashing clean and clear into a glass.