Before the Flamboyants Bloomed

All night the earth was weeping,
dry and cracked like overbaked flatbread;
all night the desert winds were blowing,
filling the crevices with sand.
The ocean, changing its clothes, shredded its indigo garments,
but not even that could calm it.
Only the sky remained tranquil and empty,
as if nothing was happening,
as if it did not see this disaster.

All night the earth was howling.
Or maybe it was the thirsty animals
roaming the forests and savannas,
dying next to the dried-up springs.
Or maybe it was the trees bending to breaking point,
their leaves lapping at the arid earth.
Only the sky was cruelly tranquil and empty,
as if nobody needed the rain,
as if it did not see this disaster.

All night the earth was writhing.
Or maybe it was the people waiting for rain,
the way one waits for a first-born child
balled up in a lifeless womb.
Before dawn, everything dozed off, exhausted, right where it was,
people and trees and animals.
Only scraps of the shredded garments still floated on the ocean.
But with the rising of the sun
as if the wounds of the earth were rising
(red flowers and fires, fires in the city)
the flamboyants bloomed.