On preparing in good times so you never have to beg in the bad ones

Dig the Well

Dig your well before the thirst arrives to educate you hard,
because thirst is not a patient teacher and she don’t regard
your situation or your reasons or how dry it’s been —
she just makes you wish you’d dug it back in better seasons.

Nobody shows up with a bucket when you’re begging for a drink,
they’ve got their own wells to maintain and their own thirst to think
about — and a man who didn’t plan is a man on his own,
standing in the cracked earth reaping what the lazy years have sown.

I dug my first well in the spring when the tank was running full,
my neighbor said I was wasting time and that I was a fool.
Come August he was at my fence and I gave him what I had —
and he never called me foolish again, for good or bad.

The well don’t care if you’re thirsty when you finally break the ground,
it’ll give you water either way once deep enough is found.
But dig it in the good times when the digging don’t hurt so,
because dignity’s a dry thing when you’ve nowhere left to go.

Dig your well before you’re thirsty… ’cause nobody shows up with water once you start beggin’.

I’m Alan Nafzger. Appreciate ya!