O blow, you desiccating desert wind!
Wrench limb from trunk and dash it to the ground!
Snap saplings! Sandblast eyes! Crack tender skin!
With writhing branches doors and windows pound!

Your cruelty is indiscriminate,
No ocean breeze can cool that righteous ire
No more than night can force you to abate
Or mercy stay your gusts when you near fire.

Devourer of impenetrable cloud,
You mock the myriad who dare complain
When fog descends to tenderly enshroud
A population that’s forgotten rain.

A dream of verdant meadows in a drought
Makes it more difficult to go without.