Drought - Steve Sanfield

[Larry Robinson]

Drought     

I
Can you spare some water?
I’m down to rock bottom.

No water for horses.
Can’t even begin to think
about keepin’ the fruit trees alive.
Never been like this before.
 
Mid-December and the only fires
on my neighbors’ minds
are those that could
scar these hills again.
Crisp clear days
hardwoods aglow
but at night
no fires are needed.
 
Gardens long ago withered
wells gone dry
high country lakes dead and desolate
drained for the first planting
of winter crops in the valley below.
 
II
Among the Hopi Indians
when the rain doesn’t fall
each man and woman asks
What did I do wrong?
Did I stumble in the sacred dance?
lay down cornmeal with an evil thought?
 
Many seasons ago when
no rain had fallen
on the land and the spirit
for so long
I set out on a journey
in search of a rainmaker.
(It must be my fault.
It is because of me
the clouds always pass.)
 
Rabbis reverends roshis
and then atop the high mesas of Arizona
I ask the Hopi elder Grandfather David
what I can do.
A long night in the kiva
the feet of dancing kachinas
shaking the earth
and he says
Return to your home
Purify your heart
Ask nothing for yourself.
 
Simple and direct.
An impossible task
a quest for heroes
who left our world long ago
but what else to do?
 
III
Now years later
so many lives bone dry
dreams crushed by reality
visions incomplete
anger and bitterness seeping in
through the fault lines of the heart
and still no rain.
 
I search the radio dial
for a hopeful sign
and hear Smokey the Bear
died in a cage in Washington D.C.
He was 25 years old.
 
Discouraged but undaunted
I consult the Talmud at random
and find: ‘The rain falls from above
but it begins below.’
 
As always
It comes down to
letting the rain fall.
Dear friends,
please do what you can.
 
	- Steve Sanfield
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