Pure Drops

They put her on a pedestal and let her play
to audiences parched of music;
with her frenetic fingers and her porcelain skin,
the harpist was so delicate
she wore a gas mask for fear of something toxic.

But once the lights were dimmed,
the auditorium hushed,
the conductor’s baton raised
and the orchestra ready on the right page of the score,
she released into the concert hall the tinkling of rain
and the heady scent of petrichor,
a rush of negative ions in a world of drought,
where the city was deserted until the stars came out.

How they longed for pure drops instead of radioactive rain,
to drink, to bathe, to splash and swim
in lakes and oceans once again!

The harp dripped notes like sprays of spring
on the privileged and wealthy,
who’d sold the world and saved themselves,
the beautiful and healthy.