It seems our godless land is cursed
By drought; my yard cries out in thirst.
The lawn is like a mottled skin
Shed by a reptile, dry and thin.
The water, scarce, is rationed here,
And only gold is held as dear.
But even that, when in the heat,
Will take, to water, second seat.
The rules are I must hold a hose
And only in the times they chose.
I thus protect my precious slot –
Except, by chance, I once forgot
Until the sun had slipped away
And all the stars were out to play.
I could not let my hours pass;
At night, I watered woeful grass.
I watered till the water ran,
Made little rivers like the Dan
Among the shoots, the green not seen
Except for patches in between.
The moon was out; it beamed upon
My watered work and sparkles shown
Like diamonds strewn across my land –
The beauty of that night was grand.
And while I marveled at the sight
Of aesthetic jewels at night,
For life, not “like”, the blades gave thanks
And stored them in their grassy banks.
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2011.
I am in water restricted area, but the restriction is financial…shows up on my bill. I took out my front lawn and planted lavander and birds of paridise and covered the ground with bark from my tree trimmer. I do understand your fantastic poem.
Thanks for putting words to a scary water situation.
I see you wrote that poem over a month ago, but your description is so apt. Well-done, and I hope the water situation has changed.
It hasn’t; it’s grown worse. It’s hot every day, 100 and over or close to it. I think we’ve gotten a tenth of an inch of rain since I wrote that. Since then, water restrictions have been tightened further, and we’ve been told to cut our usage 30%. My grass was dying at level before that so I’ve given up.
Got to this through Maggie’s blog and we were in the same boat here in NC until the last two weeks when we’ve started having rainy afternoons. We have lost some plants and shrubs, too, but your situation sound far worse.
I enjoyed the poem~
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Thanks for this and the other drought poems. As an ex farmer I have first hand experience of severe drought. I’ve got another drought poem coming up myself. Something obviously that Texas and Australia have in common from time to time. By the way there is a town in Queensland called Texas.
Much of west Texas is semi-arid, ranched, not farmed, so it’s always on the verge of drought. This one has affected all of the state. Didn’t know that about the town Texas in Queensland. 🙂
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