Rain After Drought

For almost two years
the sky stared back at us blank,
sent one thin rattle of snow
across the skeletal reservoirs.
We thought it was the end, the Big One,
the firestorm of prophesy
pouring from the cloudless zenith
to perfect creation. We waited.
We watched the corn stunt and burn.

Then we woke from dreams of fire
to dreams of grace, to blessed rain.
We set our faces to it, drank,
sent up besotted alleluias
as the world went overnight
impossibly green again, alive.
The rooftree rang with praise,
rang with antiphons pealed
from all the high choirs of the sky.

I hear no alleluias now:
just the unrelenting anthem
of the rain, just the ceaseless
riffle and tick against the glass,
the fluent patter of demented eaves.
I dreamt last night a wooden zoo
sailed out with creatures two by two
for the siren shoals of Ararat.
Will this blessing never pass?