It Has Been Dry

My wife and I spent the week in Dallas, Texas last week.  It was HOT, and in most places extremely dry.  Texas has been suffering over the past few years with extreme drought and hot temperatures.  We are accustomed to hot weather here in the lower Texas Rio Grande Valley, but nothing like what we experienced in Dallas.  The temperatures were over 105 degrees everyday we were there.  The newscasters did some heat readings on black asphalt and dark colored vehicles and got readings in the 130 to 145 degree range.  We were glad to get back to our variety of summer heat here in the Valley.  Our temperatures are tempered by the breezes that reach us from the Gulf of Mexico.  We could use some more rain here, and I'm sure the farmers are praying for some now that the cotton crop is in.  I wrote this poem during a period of drought some years ago.  I could use a rain in the literal sense and also metaphorically in a writing sense.

God’s Symphony

The land is parched and dry

beneath the summer sun

and one might question,

why its been so long since rain

has spattered softly in the dust

until the droplets blend

in numbers large enough to

soak the crust and run in rivulets

steaming in the heat with

pitter, patter beat

backed up by lights

behind gray clouds

and roar of distant tympani?

First pianissimo, then forte

as the lightning cymbals crash

and drum roll thunder shakes

the core.

The howling wind joins in

for harmony and takes the

movement down to pianissimo

once more

then fades to blue.

Dennis Price