You breathed a furnace on the town.
and made a desert of the street.
The oleander withering.
as asphalt cracked beneath my feet.


Our Lady gazed down from the wall.
it was as if she pitied me.
As cool and cloistered as a pearl,
beneath her marble canopy.

The air hung thick and filled me with.
such tension that i nearly burst.
And worst of all I could not quell.
this deep and dusty-throated thirst.


There rose a fountain in the square,
It only made my stomach sink.
For even Neptune in his bowl,
was parched without a drop to drink.

And here the birds refused to sing.
The statues all were blind to me.
No starry jasmine on the stem.
no honeyed fruit upon the tree.

But then at once the sky turned grey.
a halcyon breeze began to rise.
As drops of diamond rain appeared.
and fell like manna from the skies.

Now silver trickled through the streets
a bird shook opals from his wing.
While gurgling fountains brimmed with pearl.
and all the world began to sing.

And then that scent of earth and sky!
That bracing mix of soil and rain
That made me think the deities
had joined us on the mortal plane