As an Antipathy from Jacques to Jacqueline

And so, it seems, nothing has changed

Pensive outside a new home, by night

The sound is limited and the air is strangely familiar

Here I am, with thoughts unbalanced, an altered medium

But my mind is still the same

It’s as if the sky tonight reflects what my mind has always been

And what it always will be

A dark, dense, old-growth forest

Roots so bound, the trees, established and anxious

Try and fail to grow beyond their forging;

Beautiful, but tortured, starving for water

Ageless, far-reaching, but starving for water

A southern thunderstorm, a welcomed disturbance

The rains came suddenly, falling fast without warning

And the heedless flora yearned for more, begged for more

It was given mindlessly, without question, from the lasciviousness above

Power lines erupting sparks, afflicted transformers;

The night was alight with the brightness of the ageless

And the rains would slow, the water flowed, and the trees could breathe again

Only once again, for the next day arrived, and the cycle began again

And suddenly it was no more

Flora, as if with a sense of self, yearned for more, begged for more

Wilting slowly and forced to implore

The sky which responded only as it does tonight

Silent, sable, beautiful and illuminating; goodnight, --

Clouds would gather, and rather than rain

Would drizzle, making miserable the flora

Who yearned for more, begged for more

El Niño arrived and with him the drought, a painful realization

Like a broken meditation

To know the welcomed disturbance was fleeting

An ephemeral bridge between spring and fall

And only that. That was all.

And so, it seems, nothing has changed.