Home > Poetry Magazine > The Drought

Poetry Magazine

POEM
RELATED CONTENT Discover this poem's context and related poetry.

The Drought

By Gary Soto b. 1952 Gary Soto

The clouds shouldered a path up the mountains

East of Ocampo, and then descended,

Scraping their bellies gray on the cracked shingles of slate.

They entered the valley, and passed the roads that went

Trackless, the houses blown open, their cellars creaking

And lined with the bottles that held their breath for years.

They passed the fields where the trees dried thin as hat racks

And the plow’s tooth bit the earth for what endured.

But what continued were the wind that plucked the birds spineless

And the young who left with a few seeds in each pocket,

Their belts tightened on the fifth notch of hunger—

Under the sky that deafened from listening for rain.

Gary Soto, “The Drought” from The Tale of Sunlight (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978). Copyright © 1978 by Gary Soto. Reprinted with the permission of the author, www.garysoto.com.

Source: Poetry (June 1977).

Biography

Gary Soto is known for a body of work that deals with the realities of growing up in Mexican-American communities; in poems, novels, short stories, plays and over a two dozen books for young people, Soto has recreated the world of the barrio, the urban, Spanish-speaking neighborhood where he was raised, bringing the sights, sounds and smells vividly to life within the pages of his books. Soto’s poetry and prose focus on everyday . . .

Continue reading this biography