THIRST
It's in the way the rain falls
in sharp, inexorable drops
until the world is long lines,
stitching sky to earth.
It's in the driving needles
that push hungry fawns to group
and bed beneath the drooping birch.
It's in the urge that makes them
nuzzle sodden earth, returning,
little by little, through a new washed world
in certainty and wonder
in search of tender shoots.
