We drove on
the air outside thick
so hot you could taste it.
The cornfields skeleton fingers of
the homestead graveyard
we drove on
while pools and ponds withered
and left rings of crying cracks in the earth
1, 6, 10 foot below before.
And cattle scrambling for thin shade in the ragged trees
the trees singing the dustbowl blues
like the last grandfathers and mothers who still remember it true
we drove on
in hopes of catching rain
thunder that cracks the sky open to drink.
We chased our shadows in the heat of the drooping sun
thinking and hoping it can't last forever,
that the hot thick air will grow cool and wet
and sweet pungent rain will meet nostrils and aching knees that knew,
it had to come.
We hope and pray because we have so little left,
that if cut open, our veins would flow with water and
not find that we had become only the dust.