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Lily Pads
by stacey Wednesday, Jul 29 2015, 11:19am
international / poetry / post

the rains came
pelting the ground and every
growing thing

foliage is battered by
the assault,
flooded billabongs spill
onto the plains creating an
inland sea
crocs stir from their hidden places
to find a mate

pouring as if Noah had completed his ark
yet the lily
remained impervious to every tiny
water bomb

words pelted down onto the page
from the stormy fury of my keyboard
yet made no impression on the lily people
nothing, not the most forceful word-string,
thunderous metaphor or allusion
made the slightest difference

the season opened with a raging storm
yet lilies remained as they were
surrounded by water but as dry as bleached desert bones

my weathered skull picked clean of every vestige
of tissue sat amid the words and rain
hollow eye sockets see more than impervious tissue eyes

thunder explodes and rolls around the heavens
like a battle waged against an invulnerable foe
impervious minds remain unchanged
yet for all its power, might and devastating floods
the lily’s dish rafts float unperturbed in the wetness
all around

far away in the red centre a blind desert mole
sees the sound that insects make as they scurry across
the sands,
following this sound-trail the tiny mole
erupts from under the sand and snatches its hapless victim,
what need of eyes when other senses are tuned to such heights?

the tiny mole is almost as old as the land it inhabits
yet sees nothing with its remnant eyes
what need of eyes in a world devoid of light?

the stereo announces a song
muffled by the rain,
it’s George’s guitar weeping
while my keyboard is screaming