The speaker looks at a clock and finds nothing there to hold onto, only fear. The opening lines make that fear feel strange and specific: it isn't a monster or a threat, it's an emptiness, the blank a person meets when they stare at passing time. After looking, the speaker can't get a single thought or event to "take place" in their mind. The mind has stalled, as if it's been emptied out.
Then the poem turns outward. While the mind sits blank, the yard is "drying up." The title, "Drought," suggests that the dryness outside and the barrenness inside mirror each other. Nothing grows in either place. The speaker seems helpless, watching rather than acting.
The mood is quiet, tense, and a little numb. There's no dramatic outburst, just short, flat lines that mimic the stillness they describe. Judging by the language, the speaker seems stuck, waiting for something, whether rain or an idea, that hasn't arrived.