Double Shot of Drought

Drought I.

(55 dustdevils for the G-Man)

When it's hot 

as the devil's kitchen

week after brazen week,

grass fires with a sigh at spark's 

lightest touch, ash tornadoes fly;

fields' green finish turns to 

crackled glaze, the bones of the corn

 soften and flop, emptied by

a marrow-sucking sun;

oh

it's too late to pray for rain

but still 

you do.

~July 2012

[Those playing the 55 game, feel free to stop here. Toads, continue on.]

 Drought II.

The heat came when the fear of it had passed

and made the land bleed dust. Dry coughs, fretful nights.

Often we sat drinking with the bees till past dark, laughing crazy

our faces rolling with the stars and the night more blue than black, and your
eyes fever bright.

Days, the hot southern wind lapped on our cheeks but it was too dry to spit. Hungry as a deer, it licked the boiled-out salt our bodies gave in the sun's long leathering. 

I remember that August the full moon came twice, like a young man or a ripe woman, and it was called blue, still round and silver as a coin. No reason why.

The green fingers of the hills put on gloves of red drought, leaves paper trees brown. Their scent tastes copper flat as blood, dead as stone. Work always, but the baby laughs.

I don't know when the last rose faded, when my face changed with the dry earth. Skin crackled like glaze on an old cup, and I was painted in place with all the colors of forgotten weather.

~August 2012

An attempt at an okyfied  zuihitsu exercise for Kerry's Wednesday Challenge at   real toads

Process Notes: August 2012 will contain two full moons; this is relatively rare, and is the origin of the expression, 'once in a blue moon.'

I've grouped these two pieces together because the second grew directly out of the first, which I had written earlier this blistering hot week for G-Man's Friday 55 prompt. Then I tried to do the same subject with a 'running brush,' random-style, and it escaped and went all over the place. I don't know if I've really fulfilled Kerry's prompt properly with the second piece, but this is what happened when I tried--thanks, Kerry, this was challenging for my very non-oriental, non-prose-prone brain, but it was fun.

Image Credits: Drought I: Drought, by arby reed, on flick'r

Drought II: Unknown Found Vintage Photo, Tulsa, OK, by imarcc, on flick'r
Footer: Crackled Rose, by Big Gray Mare on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons License