The People of Sahel Remember Rain

Less the lack of it, more the lack of the memory of it:
of children who had known only bleached-bone earth,
 
had heard only stories of it, told by grown-ups who shushed
them to sleep while they slipped into the night to drum

and dance it: the way it would steal from the sky, gather speed,
shimmer like silver needles, the way it would feel on the face,

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the hands, its patter; how it could carve creeks on dust-covered
backs, on legs and arms that cracked with the lack of it,
 
and mouths pinch-parched, thirst unslaked by the slick of it
left in their great clay pots; so when it arrived one night

on tiptoe, a rustle of wonder spread from hut to hut, a rumour
like rat steps in corn, and as the first drops fell, fierce and fresh;
 
the pots began to fill, the river to rise, though in the noise
and mystery, the blaze and rumble of the sky, no one knew

whether to dance or pray - whether their gods were pleased
or angry; children and elders stretched out arms, cupped hands.