| My well is dry and
the old pump rusted and cracked
When the dust comes it fills the shallow trough. As the wind drops it there It clogs the pipe and rots its gasket. Sitting on my porch in my chair, the rockers grating on the sand that scours my boards, I watch the clouds for rain. And they raise arching from the hill to the sun With the whispy regularity of summer days. And no soft cool wind, no rolling or thunder. The dust stays on the wide cottonwood leaves. Last year's field lies pierced with the broken stalks of last year's corn This year's field lies baked and bleached and swept. Even the dog has suddenly grown old. I water the geranium from the barrel. And it has a bloom making in my dry heart an agonizing hope. And when a graying comes suddenly across the sun I look up slowly with my Pulses beating in my soul. In the stagnant nights I dream of lush spring showers flooding through the leaves, Dripping on the roof in brushes with broad green leaves. I dream of blowing trees and the angry black black turmoil of the thunderhead And the final consummating thunder. But when I wake the dust has settled on the blanket and the sun has risen behind a red burned sky |
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