Spring Overwhelmed by the Rain

After the long drought,

the rain. Shy drops shivered from a swollen sky,

at first so light, so teasing, the dust

didn’t even skip a beat.

Then came a few more shivers,

a clap of thunder, a flash of thousand torches—

the thirsty earth couldn’t drink

as fast as the heavens fell.

It hammered down as if angry

at having to leave the heights.

Good heavens, it poured—

left, right, unrelenting,

merciless to man, child, and beast.

The lanes turned to wilding rivers,

to swirls where we once walked.

We rejoiced for the rain until

it pounded, and drowned,

and flooded the flats where we lived.

This soul felt the succour

after months of stifling heat.

It listened to the music

of the pounding on the roof,

while the windows wailed silently—

witnesses to a wash-down that became a beating.

The poetry left the soul.

The spring inside was overwhelmed

by the weight of the torrential rains.