Dry

I don't know how long it has been since we have seen real rain. Oh we had a couple of days where the sky clouded over, thunder rumbled, and a few drops of rain made forays to the Earth, but the storms never came. It was as if any rain that did fall evaporated in mid air. I drive through an area of road construction on my daily commute and I note that the ground is so hard and packed that they have to bring in huge water trucks to soak it so the bulldozers can move the earth. The grass is dead and brown, the crops are look more like they should in late September than in early August, and the brush and trees are so dry it they seem as if the whole world could burst into flame at any moment under the heat of the summer sun.

The rain gods have forsaken us. They have taken their liquid treasure and hoarded it in the stock rooms of the sky rather than sharing it with we mortals who depend so completely on it. Not just we mortal people but the mortal animals as well. I have seen cattle set to graze in the harsh, beige fields of Johnson grass because the pastures are depleted. Rabbits have migrated to the populated areas where the lawns and flower beds are watered. They scatter like grasshoppers when one walks outside. In the early, lush, green days of summer activity at the feeder dropped off drastically from what it was during the winter. Now we are back to the feathered battle royals and I am having to refill it almost every other day- which tells me the pickings are slim even if one eats. . . like a bird.

I was driving in rural Kansas last week and there, amidst the parched corn fields and the plumes of dust hanging in the air from the gravel roads, was a church with a sign in front which read "Our prayer list: rain, troops, mercy, and you." I found that to be quite an eloquent statement about the current condition of the world.


posted by The Pendragon at 8/09/2003 12:24:00 PM