by Lisa Higgs
With clouds came no storm – no thunder, no cracked
light freed and caught. The thick air’s muscles pushed
uphill, the incline long, winding, wandering
in dense, dark trees. There was no breeze, no breath
of cool, no pool not dried, no drop sliding
stem-ward in cupped leaves. Under brush, bush, brambled
thicket, animals scrounged, sucked from berries
and ripened gardens a wet, luscious juice.
What could have been called beautiful – these days
and days of temperate sun, moderate heat,
and infrequent gray – has parched once-soft soil
to hardest rock and withered buds at bloom.
Below a pale silken sky, cats drag home
starving mice and sit in shade as they feed.
Lisa Higgs wishes her daughter, age 3, would grow tired of Hampton and the Hampsters, best seen here singing a simple song.
