and keep forever what it means
to be without yet faithful —
faithful to the hope,

but even more so to the promises
we’ve made together elsewhere.
Thinking on this dry year

will not raise our fallen reservoir.
For thinking minds are too attached
to what is lost in dying.

Thinking minds will not survive
the agony of drought,
the mud-caked daily shriveling.

So I can either pray or say
goodbye now to the wilting cosmos
and the early-nesting cardinals

so abundant at our water dish
this evening. Wrinkled now
the dogwood leaves,

I feel the little rootlets grasping.
And I’ve answered them
by stacking bricks

in all our toilet tanks —
and peeing lately in the ivy bed
at night. A dozen years ago —

it was that rainless summer
when our neighbor lay with cancer
and our gardens fell apart —

for the fellowship of nourishment.
Bob’s sacrificial sweetness
was the grace he finally got and gave.

I think the stems still standing
when it finally rains on us
will have to bow a little,

like the men who did and didn’t make it
up the bullet-beach at Normandy,
believing they are saved or taken up

for purposes they’ll yet discover.
In their then abating hunger,
I anticipate the many tears

they will have been withholding.
Tears of gratitude for breath
alone — for their becoming wise

and strong, and holy.
I can see them there, like ladies
who have not been loved

enough, who find the secret
of their suffering and freely blossom.
When it rains again,

like when it springs each June
in northern Canada, the waterproof
survivors won’t be clapping.

They will simply welcome life —
receive its ribbed giftbox, overflowing
with the unexpected and mysterious.