Rain essays and more from this writer…

An excerpt from the "Rain Essays" and
part of a book of poetry.  

Rain on the Face of Africa

  The great Serengeti’s broad face lies in the African sun,

 dry, weathered, cracked, thirsty for the season’s tears

Storm clouds gather on her brow like an old lady’s curls

Promises, promising, a n empty promise

                                The rains are too late. The children of the Serengeti

                                    lie down on her dusty bosom, never to rise again

                             A desperate waiting fills the air

At last, a single drop of rain falls on the delicate skin of the vast plain

 then another and another, t here but for an instant, before it vanishes into the scorched earth

Another drop, then ten, then dozens, then hundreds

until the broad face that is the Serengeti smears through the downpour

Watering holes fill and breach, streams and rivers run like locomotives

Mysterious fish pop out of the mud

Sweet grasses leap up in the night

Yesterday the majestic canvas was devoid of life     

  Today, overflowing, a palette  gorged with color and life…

the cycle begins anew

                         The Serengeti awakes!                        

When I began writing this book, I discovered that I had been collecting little snippets of my own writing for over thirty years.  As something touched my soul I would write it down. For example the poem about New Orleans (Adieux my Beauty) was written on my lap in the car as we drove out of that grand old city for the last time, back in 1978.  How relevant it still is after the catastrophe called Katrina.