Bridget Gage-Dixon
Pluvial
Sometimes the sky stares down
with the eye of an angry artist.
In torrents its hands pound hillside
until the earth yields to deluge.
Houses will fold into the avalanche
of soil, bury men beneath the muck,
this is the cost of genius,
the artist cannot afford to care.
Other days the sky, that gentle mother,
will stroke the fields with moisture:
trees will offer up their fruit,
crops will grow, a child will stomp
through puddles in a dance of praise.
Tomorrow the oceans will heave
themselves up and then away
from heaven. Clouds will suckle
on river, lake, and sea.
The rain will run in rivulets
over asphalt into gutters.
The soil will open greedy lips.
Blades of grass will welcome
droplet’s gliding down
their supple spines.
Bridget Gage-Dixon’s work has appeared most recently in Section8 journal and has been included in the past in several journals including Poet Lore, New York Quarterly, and Cortland Review.
Pluvial
Sometimes the sky stares down
with the eye of an angry artist.
In torrents its hands pound hillside
until the earth yields to deluge.
Houses will fold into the avalanche
of soil, bury men beneath the muck,
this is the cost of genius,
the artist cannot afford to care.
Other days the sky, that gentle mother,
will stroke the fields with moisture:
trees will offer up their fruit,
crops will grow, a child will stomp
through puddles in a dance of praise.
Tomorrow the oceans will heave
themselves up and then away
from heaven. Clouds will suckle
on river, lake, and sea.
The rain will run in rivulets
over asphalt into gutters.
The soil will open greedy lips.
Blades of grass will welcome
droplet’s gliding down
their supple spines.
Bridget Gage-Dixon’s work has appeared most recently in Section8 journal and has been included in the past in several journals including Poet Lore, New York Quarterly, and Cortland Review.