Times of Dryness

A painful drought

Acres of natural pond

Reduced to a puddle

Emaciated deer on spindle legs

So docile and polite

Taking less than was needed

To stave off their grueling thirst  

Stubborn geese keeping up the façade

Squatting low to the dirt

Inane habits still afloat

Amongst the petrified remains of fish and fauna  

While the turtles and frogs forfeited the fight

Guided by their webbed footed instincts

Towards an atmosphere alive with dragonfly wings and mosquitoes humming 

Misery had staked her claim and was waiting for her guests to come calling

But something transpired that evening

The months old apocalypse

Of never changing white light

Met its match in the menacingly gray storm

Ozone rich air stuck still

As the crawling dark clouds abducted the sallow sky

The 90 degree humidity taking a deft slap to the face

By pounding winds angry

Nothing left with the will to fight

Dying leaves

Too frail to curl inward

Ripped from their life lines

Pulverized   

Exsanguinated branches

Cracking and plummeting

Shattering

Together, strewn about the ground

In fossil formation

The rain fell heavy

Liquid bullets gathering speed

As they descended from the great nowhere

Drilling the arid dirt into hundreds of gaping mouths

Too dehydrated to absorb the salvation

Trickling down the decline like drink from a person’s chin

Learning to swallow again

The night sang in downpours

Playing tin roof percussion

Keeping a steady rhythm

Until morning broke up the revelries

Prompting the tempest to take his leave

Everything awoke

Soaked in rebirth

The return of green and copper scented earth

That stretched and sighed

Exhaling prehistoric breaths that hovered in foggy plumes above the swollen, murky creek

Calling home the steely heron

Its hungry pterosaur form

Gliding

Alighting

As the water proffered first bite of its meat

E.A. O'Connell