Colorado River Drought Forces a Painful Reckoning for States --NY Times, January 5, 2014. Photo source: Western Resource Advocates. |
rain
Smears darkly from a thunderhead,
Dangles, unraveling in the
sky
Virga drips from the arms
Of an ochre painted ghost
With hollow white eyes
Who keeps watch from a sandstone
cliff
Bearing witness to the blood-red
flood
Pulsing though the veins
That branch through the heart of red
rock
Carrying water viscous with red
silt
That no longer bleeds into the
sea.
Amy Brunvand is a librarian and a monthly contributor to Catalyst Magazine in Salt Lake City, Utah.