Devi K. Lockwood

Shortage

But the birds? On that day

rain rose not fell. Every-

one stood with their heads to

the ground, doctor’s orders,

to increase circulation

(or

touch the divine, or maybe

to levitate). But those birds

trapped in puddles, caught

in a mid-day bath (as fear of

a fire when showering) 

just disappeared, up:

Did they know? Did they bother

to say goodbye? And on the ground,

what held up the trunks of trees,

if not flow of water upside down?

In the evening news reel, Niagara Falls

was a torrent, a vertical column of water

and some poor soul in a barrel

was just going up and up and up,

a drip a speck a drop in the ozone layer. 

Then we were all on a quest

to ask the sky for our water, please

we are thirsty and dizzy from pressing

our ears to the ground. And she said:

it was never yours to take.