FIRT RAINS

Richard Ntiru

From bewildered heights, heaven gazed on earth:

She was brown and wizened with care.

Sallow vegetation lingered motionless in emptiness,

Cocking her crisp leaves, devoid of harmony.

And the famished animals limply turdged,

And slowly stopped with lifeless uncertainty,

Calmly resigned to their cruel  fate.

A moment – and the eye fed on a rarity:

As if the spectacle had stung suspended heaven,

Sun’s patriarchal face was hidden in shame;

Brown and defiled sky furrowed her brow;

Baked earth dissolved into dusty clouds;

And heaven – the  more to look  more doleful –

At  the hilltops passionately embraced the earth

Bursting into numerous rolling drums.

Powerful gusts propelled the dusty whirlwind ,

And scarlet shafts defty dived through the sky.

Leaves, like harnessed meteors, danced about

While moribund life, galvanised, rushed indoors

To impart word the Messiah was coming.

Then gushed the volley of drops of sorrow:

Heaven wept at poor earth’s wretchedness.

Where dust was odious, now mud was cherished:

Earth gulped her fill down her cracked throats,

Brown grasses sipped with virtuous gluttony,

Dipping their sore lips into the sweet mud.

Child, bird, animal, alike wallowed in the mud.

Sun again smiled at he purged earth,

While heaven and earth disengaged their arms

To stop their passionate mutual embrace.

The scene was set: Paradise recreated:

First  rains had come to salvage the earth.