Our ship’s alone; for endless days, we’ve toiled,
Nurturing those mighty flowers of industry,
Their roots searching within the Earth for oil,
That hellish ichor of nature’s ancient husbandry.
We watched Zephyrs herald the summer’s tumult,
And fair cumulus obey the season’s call to fly,
Among the warm monsoon’s embrace, exulting,
Joyful beneath the blue-mantled ocean’s sky.
Throughout sweet May, the monsoon gathered,
And compelled Fair Weather to abdicate her throne,
She leaves us among the lonely platforms, clustered,
As a flock around their shepherd, watchful but alone.
Helicopters drone on their final flights like bees,
To dip among the blooms, shimmering in the heat,
The rhythm of their wings beating in the breeze,
And carry home their drowsy weight replete.
A host of Nimbus crowds the darkening skies,
Rain, at last, spills from that brooding refuge,
In silvered cascades; for millions, a joyful reprise,
Of the summer’s gift, a life-sustaining deluge.
Heaven unleashes the season’s symphony,
Thunder with lightning hails the break of day,
Choirs of wind shriek in discordant harmony,
The seas rising in ever more violent disarray.
The gas flares drape the field in spectral gloom,
And we grope like a priest through candlelit aisles,
Of crested waves beneath the glowering dome,
To writhe and heave among the obsidian swells.
We make way among our desolate congregation,
Passing from one to another, as does the priest abide,
By his flock to offer solace in the season’s inundation,
And wait, oh, wait, until the monsoon’s seas subside.