Moisture

The grey afternoon sank, exhausted, into the lap of dryness,
and yet in the south — clouds gathered with the menace of a lover’s unspoken word.
From the miles of road never walked came the beckoning —
the dangerous promise of what the body had not yet tasted.
 
The sky blackened.
Darkness pressed in on all sides.
Droplets, lovers returning in layer after layer,
slid down the skin of the earth,
unbuttoning its blouse of dust.
The clouds’ touch loosened the garment from her face —
a secret pain escaped like the sigh from a long-clenched thigh.
 
They fled in torn directions,
tears from the rim of heaven,
rushing into the towns, the hollows, the open mouths of rivers.
Where will they go?
The lips of the loveless tremble in the wind.
Channels, creeks, and waterways shuddered,
the whole body of the world quickened under the whip of rain.
 
In the dark sari of the clouds —
humanity, love, wordless power became messengers
drawn by the deep plough of some mechanical passion.
Lift your heart into a cloud and let it burst,
let the water fall from the abyss of your soul,
so that this orgy might build walls of compassion,
drowning the lands in something more pure than dust.
 
The great drops fell like the slow, deliberate kisses
of a mouth that has waited years to open.
A squall of wind —
the sky still knew how to weep.
But men had forgotten — their hearts dried by fate’s sarcasm,
turned into beasts, machines, scientists dissecting love’s corpse.
 
Oh, we need moisture tonight.
Or else life will remain a parched bed,
a dry body in a cold room,
waiting forever for that first wet mouth.