The agency of water

Amid the drought that broke our farm
there came itinerant diviners,
listening for murmurs in the earth
that only they could hear,
shaking their heads gravely
like physicians with a dying patient,
sensing only dry and barren silences.

Weathering drought's legacy, I wonder
what my orchard feels as white buds
struggle to appear among the sapling
cumquat leaves, breezes stir the limes
to atavistic sighs for Polynesia,
olives bear up stoically
in hope of autumn rains.

Sceptical of miracles, I ply the thirsty
with brief mercy, waiting till evaporating
heat has left the sky unscathed
and starlight steals across the withered grass
where crickets used to chirr.

Reflections glimmer on the pail's
meniscus from a squinting moon,
where several nights ago the orb loomed,
masked in amber subtlety, elusive
as a face glimpsed at the bottom of a well.

'There's water on the moon', my father used
to comment, undeterred. I never asked him
how to read the lunar signs, but wish I had.

*

When I dip my hand, quick silver
elvers dart between my fingers.
When I tilt the pail, a living arc
connects me to the trees.

In times of mutability
the trees are my serenity,
a leafy host of angels
round a shabby house,
a parching yard.
Together we defy the drought,
invoking water's agency:
reviving them, reviving me,
it springs from somewhere
in my heart…