The big dogs are drilling deeper,
pumping the last of a million years
of underground water, each river
dammed into furrows to farm
the empty Laguna de Tache.
Sixty years ago, when red lights
stopped in every railroad town,
colorful cornucopias spilled
from billboards onto Highway 99
bragging fruit or vegetable capitals
of another world, and huge Big Oranges
squeezed juice every ten miles.
On the semi-arid edge of change,
we beg for rain and dream of floods
to take this Valley back in time.
* * *
Wiki: Laguna de Tache, Tulare Lake
drycrikjournal 
