Drought

After seven years of drought,
seasons of bucketing water from the shower,
wash basin, and tub--to the pinon,
awash with bores, the juniper, butterfly
bush, and the winsome,
plucky rose--
 
the desert, one day,
tired of the promise of rain,
weary of dark skies, and of the smell of ozone,
and of lightening and the
endless peal of hollow thunder,
lifted its parched lips,
and cried out once and for all
to the mountains, and the spirit that lives there.
The people,
 
that is, all  of us, danced,
the Dineh, Navajo, Hopi, and Tewa,
we danced at the pow-wows,
we danced in the churches, we prayed
at the sacred springs, and hidden places. 
We pressed our songs up to the bowl of the sky,
let our tears fall
in the red clay, into the
dry sand washes,
and riverbeds,
 
then, in the midst of our heavy fears,
but never apathy, the rains came, all at once
and hard.  The monsoons, in the midst of summer
and early fall, poured down from the mountains
and the clouds, onto the baked earth,
poured into streets, and over river banks, ditches,
and acequias, over the beards
of old men and the shawls of
the dancers,
 
over the parched trees
and dry gardens, and canyons walls,
and the mud baked feet of
children, and old women making fry bread,
over the boots of cowboys, dandies,
wanna be injuns, real injuns, and me.