A bout with drought and with doing without.

My internal spring seems clogged up with grout.

Barely any words or images sprout

and those that manage to, struggle and wither,

sending a shiver down a waterless river.       

Low humidity and a parching wind,

fires to the west and smoke-ash skies…

I wait for the rain scouts to cast away doubt,

thunderheads touting a full-throated spout.

And when the rain comes, I will dance and shout.

May all colors refresh and my poems ring devout.

Meanwhile Ida does not stand idle

as she tears off the roofs on both sides of the aisle.

She points Gaia’s wrath at what we have forgotten,

our misbegotten goals, our venomous bile,

our enormous capacity to fool and beguile.

Must it all be wiped clean by fire or flood?

Must each of us shed our own portion of blood?

Must we stand at the airport waiting in alarm

to be airlifted away from the crush and the bomb?

Is there anywhere left to be airlifted to?

“Never had a lotta faith in human beings,”

Cockburn once sang of our troubling times.

May he be right that sometimes we still manage to shine.