Across
long years I mourn
her loss –
yearn for
her laugh with each
downpour,
descry
her smile in each
short high.
Ryan Stone
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rain
Drought Break
The first splash,
a drum crash
on hardpan.
Tin roof hiss,
a slow kiss
that grows
into rushing
percussion.
New voices rise,
warbles and sighs,
from beneath the shelter
of tree ferns–
a chorus begins,
magpie trills
and woodwind,
as sound
to the outback
returns.
Ryan Stone
Another bite at dVerse quadrille #33 – Sound Off!
Climax
Dragonflies & Raindrops
It starts with a single languid drop,
beating a hardpan drum.
Cicadas warble a scorched-earth vibrato,
rushing skyward, the long-dry undone.
Rusty tears trickle their bullnose percussion
on verandah iron and brass. While the red dusts
of torment yawn and drink deeply,
thirsty as fire-kissed grass.
My hard-bitten mongrels, in Waratah shade,
flick ears laid unseasonably low.
Drought threatens to claim what Tigers have not.
Limp tails tell tales of woe.
Resembling slender men, brown withered stems
raise limp hands, tattered and burned.
A chorus begins, Magpie trills and woodwind;
life to the outback returned.
Movement staccatos; even dragonflies pause
from their wild tumbles and dips.
A long-absent lover, in the final refrain,
bestows a moist kiss on parched lips.
by Ryan Stone
* Tigers -> the venomous Australian Tiger Snake
Click here for audio
First published in Of Words and Water 2014
Absent 5-7-5
Ingénue – a Musette
Ingénue
Raindrops –
steel drums, belting
roof tops;
loud beats
unheard beneath
white sheets
where two
hearts shed one last
taboo.
– Ryan Stone
