Waiting for the rains

In that time of waiting, breath held, captured,

as dust sighs on suffocating, surrendered leaf,

silence sits, sullen, suppurating without breeze;

heat holds court, commands; hours textured.

Days are teased through long, stretched seconds,

where minutes sit like years on wearied minds,
as humidity does plot with searing sun defined;

and birds huddle, in gasps which do not lessen.

Breathing through the steaming soup of season,

desperate for the cooling rains to come once more,

watching for bright sky to breed deep, dark flaws;

some do surely stumble into sudden loss of reason.

Madness in those moments of a world expectant,

dragging through the daylight to soothing darkness,

human, animal, bird, leaf and thirsty earth confess;

so all wait for those first drops of rain as presence.