They've been praying for rain in the capital again,
droning and murmuring under the dome
of a sky remote as a sepia wash,
the sun a timid pearl in the smoke
that leaks from a thousand slow pyres,
air thick with the stink of smolder.
Lawns fray, stems sag in the breathless heat.

The stalky hedge we can almost bear,
dead roses and intermittent taps,
our pink lungs gasping like gills.
What's worse is the way the world closes in.
The hills faded first, then the dead
end streets and now we're lost
behind a barricade of dust.

To reclaim the familiar blessing of water
we kneel in a congregation of shadows
—O let it fall in sheets on us all
and flood this desert world—
and when, after all, have we prayed for other
than this: to be dazzled by clarity,
healed by thunder and rain,
once more absolved
in the fugitive light from the dripping stars?