Kneeling at the wasp drummed creek
of you, where the blank elm whitens
into chalk, I am not consoled.
Everywhere is dusk and oiled crow,
slatted sky and the wind’s torn harp.
There is no entering you
you of the weed scrubbed ochre field,
you of the spider rooted grasses taking hold,
you who have let the landscape enter you
crowding out every thing that thirsts.
I thirst, and find no slaking
here on my knees on the caked gravel bank
of you, the droughty ash laden parch
of you, the wrung creekbed of your depleted rill,
so I will leave you to your own arid beck
and call forth my own monsoon with this
petition to every thing that rains and floods,
to every thing that’s blue and wet and soaking
and I will drink and drink and drink and bathe
and drench the unyielding dust of you until
I am clean and you unfurl and bloom.