Just a little rain…

It’s been a little too hot for me this summer, and a little too dry. The lawn is brown and not growing (as my yard guy laments), and the corn in the fields looks a little wan. The weather service reports less than half an inch of rain so far this month in St. Lawrence County.

Just a little rain, my wishful yard guy says, and it will all come roaring back. So In lieu of cloud-seeding – for which I am not equipped – or a rain dance – for which I am really not equipped – here is a poem I wrote some years ago that I hope will placate the bringer of drought.

Water Prayer

The water I carry greened in stump-hollows,
flew as cloud, and pumped through
the frantic hearts of birds. It passed from body
to body in passion.

The water I carry steamed from leaves in heat
and trickled through chill caverns that never give
wonder to light. It was the most of minnows
and the tails of whales.

It dripped from the icicle tip to the well. It burst
from wombs. It spattered the shoes of drunks.
All this water I carry is holy by use and sharing
and ubiquity.

I praise the water for forming itself into ages of women
and men, for gorge-gouging and placid deposition.
I praise steeped tea and the warm bath. I praise
soup and slobber,

rapids and rime, wine and wysteria, wounds,
jellyfish, cattle and cud. I praise this water whole
and part and plunge in its coolness these words
to temper.

Tags: listeningpost, poetry