Mistral's Sister

Fear defines the burrowed space
where I am calm & time stands still,
the way a desert sulks for summer’s sake
& waits in rapt attention for the rain.

As if that troubled tear I dropped
could grow a sister Mistral I might cause
to blow half-way around the earth
to search for ways to end the drought.

She might find the clouds off-shore,
where static air ignites the shape
of night in an erratic strafe from sky
to ground, brave before the thunder’s din,

& in her wild imagined state
could swing beyond the moon’s excited gape
& string the sweat from mountain brows
like pearls across the barren floor.

Why not send her wanton wind
& borrowed anxious axis-hips
while I grow into mine & claim
her midnight binges are just storms that cringe

before the sky turns in for morning prayers?
No shame can spring from this mirage
that floods the sand with waters gleaned
throughout her flight of bright illusions dreamed,

nor blame for her affairs that bring restoration
of reluctant pools to the surface of her arid
golden skin & nomadic layers of oases, granting
absolution in the transient seas of gratitude.