The Drought Walk

My pomegranate and chestnut trees

Whispered their incantations

For clement skies,

Their foliage

A distant memory of yestertime.

Dug deep I have

In the womb of the earth

In search of a river

To quench this land.

Raucous machines kept roaring

Into the early am hours.

With every inch I descended

I looked up at the sky

My gaze’s empty

And lungs short of air

Sweat so profuse

Palm readers swore

There’s oceans galore

If I but persevered to the bitter end.

Whatever.

Only mounds of earth

Building up before my eyes

Hiding the universe.

Water there wasn’t,

Only more dirt, more sweat, and more hurt.