Rain!

I grew up knowing what drought was like, my father more and morose as each day passed with no rain. One of the first poems I ever wrote was titled "Drought," and I still remember how the cornfields looked after weeks of dry July weather. My father was convinced that there would be a water war between Metro Atlanta and rural Georgia and that farmers like him had to gear up for it, learn how to use water as efficiently as possible, not to mention politics. Even after his death, I can imagine him standing with shotgun in hand as a great wave of Atlantans comes guzzling across the state, ready to suck up all the water they can for their sprawling city.

Dwindling supplies of oil have led to apocalyptic visions of violent conflict among countries desperate to keep their economies running, but water is what we should be worrying about. Climate change is leading to worldwide water shortages, and we are seeing our own weather patterns shifting in ways we can't predict. Wasting water has become a way of life in our country. In fact, wastefulness in all things has become the American Way. Most of us give water only a passing thought.

Yesterday, though, I wanted to celebrate water!

Finally we had been visited by rain, enough to make a difference in our garden. All through the weekend we had drizzle, and then Sunday a real rain. I walked out Monday morning to diamonds shimmering on leaves, tomatoes, grapes, and tall asparagus plants.




More precious than diamonds and rubies this water, I thought, remembering the poem I had written so many years ago, in which Alma, the mountain woman speaking the poem, walks out with her future husband onto the steep
hillside he will inherit.

Diamonds

This, he said, giving the hickory leaf
to me. Because I am poor.
And he lifted my hand to his lips,
kissed the fingers that might have worn
gold rings if he had inherited

bottom land, not this
impossible rock where the eagles soared
after the long rains were over. He stood
in the wet grass, his open hands empty,
his pockets turned inside out.

Queen of the Meadow, he teased me,
and bowed like a gentlman.
I licked the diamonds off the green
tongue of the leaf, wanting only
that he fill his hands with my hair.

from Wildwood Flower (LSU Press)