LOVE IN DROUGHT
Something falling outside the window awoke him.
Drought had made rain so rare he almost forgot
the way it rumpled the ordinary silence of the night.
The ordeal of drought, he half-reflected, was absence
as a different presence, equally strong.
It made the green lawn over into brownscapes.
The flora glory it dispatched by inches
and then by gardens, whole dessications,
limp and lost images of amour.
Elsewhere in the night another awoke.
The life she had with him had changed like the summer
and waking brought her still to that dried place.
Rain will stop by morning, he half-thought, drowsing.
She watched at her open window, absently.
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19 February 2000; revised
17 March 2000 Copyright © 2000 Richard
P. Richter