Those that survive
will talk about the ‘Drought
of Two-Thirteen’
after damn-little rain
in 2012
before the summer:
day after day,
100 degrees
or more
we endured,
trancelike—
an ascension, our
waterfed submission
of the flesh flushed,
we sweat like beasts—
let the unimportant run
down our hocks.
October now is brown,
dust dulls autumn leaves
and the dirt shows
all the way to the top
of every hill and mountain.
Not just the ground
around shrinking waterholes
pounded fine by pad and hoof
she called ‘devastation’,
sweet girl
TNC biologist
but the whole nine yards
of foothills from Fresno
to Bakersfield—we are
smack-dab in the middle
of our own damn Dust Bowl.
drycrikjournal 