Drought
The dowser’s willow rod not broken
just slowly dried and thinned until
turned transparent ochre, then not much
left but a shimmer in the air, ghost
of voiced and silent prayers for rain.
The words carried so much packed up in
the space between the dowsing and ourselves,
is it any wonder they grew tired and set their
load down, blew away, left us behind?
Lately the vowels have swallowed themselves,
I wonder what we can do to joke and talk without
those open-throated slaked-thirst sounds.
We once planted each other in the other, now
it seems every green thing is brittle, brown.
The smell of dust makes it hard to remember the smell of rain.
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