1.
Traces of the rains that pass
Are skimming higher mesa-parts,
But hardly giving cactus bloom
Where the desert starts.
Sands, receptive, ask too much
And nothing in returning give–
Only outcasts of the waste
Feed on her and live.
2.
After endless horizontal
Rim-rock, ridge and plain,
There are grimly vertical
Shafts of falling rain.
What is it depresses so
This egotist you are;
Because another now you know
Perpendicular?
3.
Cross-sectioning the cloudlike skies,
The rain roots through
The frantic dust above the ground
It sinks into.
But twenty miles from this high butte
On which I stand,
The roots of rain have shrivelled up
In barren land.
(Norman MacLeod)
More Poetry from Norman MacLeod:
- Trust In God And Do The Right (Norman MacLeod Poems)
- Adumbration (Norman MacLeod Poems)
- Casa Grande: Arizona (Norman MacLeod Poems)
- Apostrophe (Norman MacLeod Poems)
- Bohobodom (Norman MacLeod Poems)
- Gunsight Trail: Glacier (Norman MacLeod Poems)