Classic Poem

Rain gently down. The earth gapes red and dry,
The little calves suckle at wrinkled teats
Within the moon of thin solicitous necks.

Rain gently down and turn the sagebrush green,
Run in long rivulets colored like blood
In veins across the land. The mountains stand
Blue, immaterial, so ætherealized
They join in the ringed dance of the blue clouds.

Long slant of rain, the upward pull of mist,
The changing pools of sky, the moving air
Now fill the valleys with their rioting,
Where all is rock and stillness and heavy herbs
Answering with incense, not with any motion.

Motionless too the beasts stand in the rain,
Shining like stones set in a flowing river
Until the last drop falls, the storm is over
And the colts raise their little wooden heads
And prance on long legs, while the wet mares fling
The wild bells of their whinnying to the hills.