drycrikjournal

No wet redwood reflection, I look past black morning,
scan the radar for a chance the last forecast stalled
before it got away to who-cares-where into the future
on the other side of the Sierras, then search for stars beyond
the gray for an out-of-habit game plan between rains:
soft warm earth too wet to work too far from home.

Forty years ago I slowed, took the Fowler exit off
Highway 99 for Madam Sophia’s neon sign of things
to come my way from the landscape of my palm:
low range of callouses spilling into the deep canyon
of my heart—she read both hands and lit a candle,
saw lots of water in my future and I was glad.

Dawn is gray above the green and last year’s bleached
dry feed, chorus line of sycamores undress white limbs,
show flesh between their rosy leaves to tease a good
hard rain to bring the creek to sweep its cobbled bed
of four-years’ deadfall in a rush to wipe out water gaps:
fixing fences into a future that’s not quite guaranteed.