For once

For once

The air is cool

Rain a welcome distraction

Summer has beaten its way

Over the landscape

Flattened the grass

Dried it out

Yellowed to white

Hollowed until brittle

Easy to snap

Easy to burn

A scrawny bush

In the outback

Is no biblical furnace

To inflame the imagination

An old sun blazes

Through dry stick limbs

Losing the fight

To survive

Dropping slowly behind

Cobbled hills

Doused by the choking confine

Of low slung cloud

Steam heat

Vaporizing excess oxygen

There is always

A shortness of breath

In the air

The soil gave up its life

To the heat a long time ago

Opening itself up to the

Notion of rain

Giving itself over

Cracked and parched

Its old face

Has seen too much pain

Precipitation

A welcome

Though brief relief

Resurrection a magical

Solution

To the dead wood

Transformation is completion

On an epic scale

Everything moving

Too quickly

Even when standing still

The pace of life

Is a delusion

Dreams lost

In the weft of time

Are washed clean

Of regret

Insurrection

Runs afore the tempest

Before the day is done

There will be new growth

Ready to go again

As is the way of things