DISMAL

The weather is dismal, tailor-made for
Economics, the dismal science —
Buy low, sell high this drizzle’s reliance
On some cosmogonic division of labor;
Buy fog, sell cirrus high since
Cloud banks balance the astrolabe or
Pettifogging with predictions of giants.

 
* * *
 

A DRENCHING

Unforeseen, the rumbling’s loud first
Paradiddle portends a cloudburst;
The sullen moods above the ground shout
And burst their volutes in luciferous drowned roar:
Outburst, outcast, downcast, downspout —
Step-by-step transformed into downpour.