The River Always Wins by David Marquis

Author:David Marquis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2020-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

8

Drought

God bless drought. Without it, we would all die of thirst.

Drought is a teacher, flinty and weathered. It cares not a whit for self-esteem or the student’s feelings. Either learn from it or not.

When offered such lessons, one has a choice. Learn from it once—the first time—or learn it again and again.

What to do? What to do?

The river has come through the rapids and survived the flood. The drops have rested and rejuvenated in the still water and are ready to move on to the Greater Water.

But there is no water, for drought has come.

Look to the sky. Pray for rain. Do a rain dance. Seed the clouds. Curse the weather forecaster. All of that, and still no rain.

Floods don’t take long. Even a short drought lasts forever.

Dust kicks up, and the air is hotter than the day before. A hawk falls from the sky, dead before it hits the ground, dehydrated. Squirrels come to bury their faces and suck droplets out of a faucet in the yard while blue jays squawk and fuss, waiting their turn. Fish flop among the parched rushes and die, and the bleached rib cages of the fallen litter the dry earth as stark testament to the killing power of the land when betrayed and abandoned by rain that refuses to fall. Livestock in the field bawl, their stock tanks gone to powdered soil as the wild ones move from watering hole to shriveled creek bank to the trickle left in the river bed.

As long as there is water in the river, it will move toward the Greater Water.

At no time does the water ever stop working on the rock. When drought comes, the water, though less, works on the rock.

The lessons of drought: Filter it. Conserve it. Change. Adapt. Create new water-wise technology—dishwashers and washing machines, showerheads and toilets. Today we have new tools, new technology. A farmer can look to his phone to examine data gathered by satellite and determine if a particular field on his farm needs water, then can irrigate that one parcel more efficiently than ever before. These are drops of change. They are welcome, but humanity needs a long soaking rain of both goodness and goodwill on a global scale.

The Romans built aqueducts. The ancestors developed ceramics to haul and store water. They dug wells, and now we drill them.

Still there is no way to defeat a drought. It will rain when it wants to. But there is a way to survive one.

Learn the art of defiance.

Hope and patience and progress are beautiful and uplifting and sustaining and grow from open hearts and faithful spirits, yet the art of defiance stands just behind them, scarred and keen on battle. It refuses to die and bends only of necessity and not for long. By God it will not be broken and stands behind hope like a big brother just off the bus and looking for a fight, more than happy to join in and throw a few punches. The art of defiance lights the candle of hope with a blowtorch and a chip on its shoulder.

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