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DROUGHT and REPRIEVE

another oldie dusted off

Too little rain for way too long
ground so dry that it's just wrong
crops all dead from moisture's dearth
what led to this drought's arid birth ?

I've never seen it near this dry
all the clouds have just passed by
what used to be broad rolling rivers
reduced to narrow tricling slivers

Cattle are gone 'cause pasture's dead
nothing to raise in their stead
many brooks are now bone dry
trees wilting, prepared to die

Near reservoir is now a puddle
where fishes, frogs, and turtles huddle
I wonder just what they may think
of being driven to the brink

Everywhere I chance to peer
desiccated, dusty, dry, and sere
for six years

A reprieve ?

Forecast is for a tropical storm
anxious tension builds
as approach grows more certain

clouds approach
arrive
thicken darken

A warm damp breeze
bearing the first tiny drops of

Rain

Slowly increasing in volume
becoming torrents
earth and all rejoice in the return of....mud
ground sucking down water
like beer at a frat party

First trickles in dry stream beds
becoming heavier
muddier
as now normal flow swiftly becomes
long awaited flood
the drought breaker
of three blessed days duration
liquid life standing in fields

The gradual tapering off
as spent storm moves on
revealing :
miraculous tiny green sprouts
full lakes and waterways
invigorated foliage
amphibians' emergence
and the return of

Hope

I used the break between western classic and free verse to emphasize the break in the weather

Comments

Many past civilizations have disappeared as the result of climate change and have done so despite there being no cars or power plants.................stan

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Drought has its own bleak beauty that is not understood by most until it breaks. I appreciate your time to visit and comment............scribbler

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watched a program on the old telly about this
cattle country.....watched how the Colorado
river shrivels up
diverted so now its a tiny creek
where once it was a mile wide plain of
water reaching the ocean
the canals silted up

our way the aquifier cracked to a community
underground...the small old dug wells
too small and sparce to provide water to the
homes for laundry.showers..water tanks.
bathing....so its trucked in daily...

but a country ..a land dependent on what is
given from the sky.....that must be a terrible
thing....everything perishes without water
the far west needs more and more and
they are talking about pipelines from
canada...

I like the style used in your work here!

thank U!

Californians might finally be starting to realize that most of the ir state is a desert and they should rethink their extravagant use of water lol. If it come to a huge pipeline I think a huge holding lake for annual Mississippi river flood waters might be a good idea .Pleased you like my first excursion into morphing poetry......stan

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I found so many cities of old, that are devoid of life because in the past as history will tell you.
The Gods were angry and no rain came to the great plains of old where we built our places.
Just have to look around at the world that is out there, the great savannahs of what is now the Sahara, of Iraq where the gardens of Babylon flourished, we will find the garden of Eden under some sand one day.
It is the way of the Earth, sad but it is there.
I have flown over the Sahara and other places where the sand wanders, one place in South Africa there are some pure white sand dunes and they are wandering across the land, there are so many places.
It is mans stupidity in that he/she would rather fight and use the technology we have for greedy gains that have no point at all.
When the wind blows the sand, the sand will win.
Take care young woodsman we may take another course one day I Hope..
Yours, Ian..

.
Give critique to help keep Neopoet great.
Unconditional love to you all.
"Learn to love yourself first"
Yours as always, Ian.T, Sparrow, and Yenti

I recall reading somewhere that a lot of the dessertification in north Africa and the middle east is the result of overgrazing(mostly of goats). But climate is whimsical and a savannah today can well become a desert tomorrow .....or a rain forest lol.......stan

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It is sad that there are many people in Africa that rely on Goats, they are to me the biggest cause of the lack of vegetation in that beautiful continent.
They kill the land and the native population cannot see it at ground level, I have flown in choppers over most of South Africa and in other aircraft over vast pieces of land, it would make you cry young woodsman, to see the destruction that this animal has caused, and we blame man, I suppose he is to blame for using such a creature.
Here in the UK we have farms that are run by the gas that the cattle dung gives off,
An impossible situation, as with using wave power to produce electricity, here we have ten thousand miles of coast and zero wave machines.
I haven't the years left Stan to make a noise for people to use things we have out there that are free.
There are so many Ideas that are practical, but who listens.
Yours as always, Ian..

.
Give critique to help keep Neopoet great.
Unconditional love to you all.
"Learn to love yourself first"
Yours as always, Ian.T, Sparrow, and Yenti

Global Warming ..
hahahahaaa
the East is two-three times
as hot as west
minimum temperatures we love here
in winter minus touches minus 30' ish my dear

In any case those ancient blokes couldn't save dynasores
in Ontario they still have their paws
would they not extract their DNA
and inject in human pores

just ask them they might as well do
all experiments too
public money what else is it for
QUESTIONS asks who???

Seasons will change
as the Ozone hole expands
seal it in space
if politicians can

All the global warming alarmists seem to forget that temperature swings have happened long before we came along. Of course they are not really worried about global warming. They are trying to use a cyclic weather phenomenon to gain more power over how we live. BTW, last I heard the hole in the ozone has started shrinking. THAT likely was caused by us and is being remedied by us......stan

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is like artificially tightening
the vagina hole
no use of condoms
too expensive
for pleasures random

at least nature is indicating
when did u last see the ozone
H O L E OR W H O LE
Stan

bang bang

It being invisible to the naked eye the answer is never to both

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