I’ve heard this story repeated often –
the bride of a homesteader, or fighter pilot,
alfalfa farmer, or real estate developer
(all prospectors of a different crop)
who sobbed at first sight:
beige grasses lean, parched
and weighted with unseen heat;
elm, chestnut, and willows weep,
all bowed in the same direction.
Fine brown silt collects
in all the windowsills
(the wives weep frustration
trying to keep ahead of the dust)
the raven’s constant cah, cah,
caveat: attempts to crowd out desert,
either madness or folly.
Even the iconic tumbleweeds
themselves rolled in
from the Russian tundra
on another famed migration.
What bares the seeds
of our great suburban discontent?
the relentless wind?
or the shallow-rootedness
which brought us to this place?
We come,
searching entrance
to the well.