our land here has suffered
dry and brittle as old bones parched with a deadly thirst
for, instead of a winter’s rainfall
our once well-tended gardens have succumbed
to repeated icy mornings and bitter, deadening moisture-less chills…
in the last two days, the skies have opened gifting us with rains
this is what we danced for prayed for have fretted over now for months…
our stormy sky here holds clouds, black and ominous
sitting heavily overhead and on an invisible horizon….
this new weather has moody CA humans grumbling already
over drenched clothes soggy shoes smelly wet critters and flooded roadways..
while others are already
dreaming of warm sands in an unreachable paradise
all, feeling guilty for not
welcoming these downpours even while rejoicing that a drought
might now be averted..
our rivers and creeks
sat stagnant for weeks on end clogged and now churning
with dead branches and leftover fall clearance
now, they sing with the threat of eminent flood waters
and we humans uncertain still
hunker in under mounds of down comforters searching for the warmth the dry…
embrace the cozy fireside moments the peace found in falling asleep to the sounds of rain on an old roof or the pattering of it on a bedroom skylite
as the heavens open
pelting us with more whispered consequences listen closely:
an eastern seaboard socked in with unforgiving relentless falling snow
ice-caps, melting volcanoes rumbling uncertain oceans, once teeming with life, clouded and deadly seismic plates shifting from the weight of our dysfunction and greed
feel the tears and hear in the raindrops
the musings from a much-neglected much abused
earth…