The men say God comes from heaven
above but the man drowning of heat in the desert
sees the sun and curses it. He does not see God
above him; hell is raining from a heatstroked
wave and he wishes to bury in the cool cool ground.
When it is the season of endless rain the devil
is trying to drown us inside out and the children indoors
do not look to the sky in gratitude. They wait
for the creeping of the weeds in sidewalk cracks
that say “New life is coming! It’s coming!” as if
somewhere deep in the ground there will be a frog
who tells you secrets and knows which booth
will get the best peaches in the summer market
and when God will make the rain finally stop.
A farmer prays for the ground to yield, for heaven
to come through the dirt every spring and cry
“Shalom! Salaam! God is here, he hears you!”
because the farmer knows where life comes from.
It isn’t the sky, where there is fire and sulfur
and the breath of a volcano blanketing a town
in ash. It is the purple flower, no better than a weed,
blooming next to a cow’s milk bucket- sent up
from heaven where the frog whispers “Winter
always ends, the rain always ends” and the frog knows
and the farmer knows such gifts come from heaven below.
