In 2025 U.S. aerospace forces can “own the weather” . . . From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options.
—Colonel T. J. House et al. U.S. Air Force, Weather as a Force Multiplier (1996)
here late in the progress
of the day. Indifferent
rain gathers grass and
seeds. Sparrow just
cold front moves in low
about cloud-seeding
selective precipitation modification
as not-rain—This delivery
That day I read it I
unread it trying to
push it back under
as a man dumping dirt
on new-bloomed phlox
sees it’s too
pink to hide pink’s
in his mind now
impertinent pink
—can’t focus on
that tall one’s
skinny shoulders
cold copper wire
almost blue and
possessed of
inner weather
inner resources
the first ancient
poem a prayer
for rain not love—
let go of your
climate down into
this ending now
badwind gusting
fast off the mountains
damp and angry
against the grass
against my face
3.
Or look away from your page your trees don’t
follow the line your curiosity stops there at sky
white as a placebo numb as a missile
also distant also entirely yours and you didn’t make it
even breaking dissembling disassembling sky
crack of lightning bone-hot your complete
dominance—yielding if you say so—if
describe—if dream of possession—
4.
Some segments of society will always be reluctant to examine controversial issues such as weather-modification dividing and indifferent blue
5.
A car engine a driver
in sunglasses another
man handsome looks at
me lonely cloud when
I do not move or
speak he does not stop
6.
The last poem an order for drought
7.
Now even the centers
of the trees stir
a bird a common
whitethroat lets out
its high robotic call
(a tape fast-forwarding
through a love song)
and looks at me and
leaves. I almost feel
not yet. This rain
will be heavy as
(I will be still as)
the body of a wounded
soldier on his back
at Austerlitz
All is falsehood
Except that infinite sky
All is falsehood
8.
Except that infinite sky
9.
Still no rain.
How little time
passes this way.
That sparrow
is back already
gathering
building
just like before.
It should
know better
not yet.