The Well Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The water well
There is near the houses a deep well
you can´t stick a bucket on a rope many ropes are needed.
They used to hire a man usually the village idiot
to spend his life hauling up buckets of water.
Villagers believed the water came from the Yanjing river
A man who had gone to school disagreed; it is a deep
underground river, he said. For this, he was disliked.
One day he fell down the well, but since it was not
manmade and smooth a big stone sticking out saved him
from falling all the way down.
Broke his leg in the fall, he did.
With a dangling leg he had to claw himself up, however
they gave him water to drink, his struggle made him thirsty.
When he got out, he spoke a strange language
the villagers, thought was Chines, it never struck them
he was stark raving mad.
Now, an electric pump was installed, they saw him limping
out of the village talking gibberish.