Martin Robertson

Now and Then

Drought

Deserts are somewhere else.

Sahara, Arizona, Gobi,

back of Australian bush.

We are growth, greenness,

water falling, flowing.

Not enough sun

is our complaint,

too much rain.

River and tap will always run.

A little shift in earth and air’s

metabolism.  Bareness,

water runs thin

thin as grass.

The desert shows through flaking green.

Mars might have been,

perhaps was,

watered, sown,

is dead dust and stone.