Excavator

It’s winter when the basement floods, 
not once but twice, a bitter time, 
taking out the heat, hot water. 
The world shivers, children die, 
why, we ask, obstruction hidden, 
but it’s clear the channel’s blocked, 
it’s time to dig, to search, to ponder, 
to call upon the excavator.

Today it comes, man and machine, 
bright yellow on the crusted snow, 
driver in the cab aloft directs the arm,
the hand that scoops, such gentle motion 
back and forth as if determined not to hurt 
but to uncover what lies deep, the pipe 
that’s choked with roots, debris, lay bare 
whatever blocks the flow, exposing 
the constricted heart, release, repair, 
restore, set free.