Caroline Puts A Damper On The Blues Poem by Sonny Rainshine

Even the verbena, started in May from seed,
seemed defeated, vanquished, resigned
to the desiccating drought.
Any condensation was doomed from the start,
swallowed up by the thirsty wind.

Like the shrieking choirs of cicadas,
and the harping crickets,
Caroline sang also, deprived not of rain
but of tenderness. Rain, rain,
drain away the pain, she sang.

But echoing back, stoic,
unmoved, aridity ran its course,
both in the air and in her deepest self.

Moving like lightning, voice thundering,
she dug up the verbena, resolute,
transplanted it into a pot,
watched it ‘til nightfall, watered it
and waited vigilent.