Break in the Drought: A Found Poem

This poem was originally published in the Autumn 2018 Edition of Folklore Magazine.

A father takes his son out into the rain*,

the child has never seen rain before

and wetness is a wonder to him.

He holds his hands wide to catch the drops,

laughs as he turns his face to the sky

nose wrinkling in the fragrance.

His father wants him to remember this night

it has not rained for two whole years

so long the dust has forgotten how to congeal

and lies like powder on the pools.

In the city it rains harder.

The woman runs to her door

sees water pour from her roof

wasting. Hurry, she says to her legs,

her heart pumps in time to the water

as she fetches a pail

runs between her favorite tree and the spout

pours the contents on its roots.

Time after time she does this,

I will save you, she shouts,

and laughs herself breathless.

The rain passes:

the child dreams a lullaby of mermaids and fishes,

the woman dozes,

imagines her pail fills with leaves and nesting birds,

mud dries in the cracks of her feet.

The wind stirs.

*The Regina Leader Post reported a Kindersley father took his son outside to see the rain. Kindersley declared itself a drought disaster area in 2001. The drought lasted from 2001 to 2003.

MARION BECK was born in Rossendale, Lancashire, England in 1931. She was a long-time member of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. She was a member and president of the Wascana Writers Group, poetry editor for a number of years for Green's Magazine, a member of the Canadian Poetry Association and an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. Writing both non-fiction articles and reviews she is perhaps best known for her poetry which is available in chapbook form and for a self-published book on autistic children and their families, The Exorcism of An Albatross. She published numerous poems in Folklore Magazine between 1988 and 2019. Marion passed away on Monday, June 1, 2020. You can read her obituary here.

Cover photo by CHOKCHAI POOMICHAIYA.