You leave and then

it rains and rains.

Flood warnings

for Ovando, Seeley

Garnet, Greenough,

Clearwater. The garden

glistens, glitter on lilac

leaves in shafts of sun.

I sit alone on the wooden

bench, hood up, smoking,

listening to rain, percussive

on the furnace pipe. This old

body hums. My knee aches

and I try to remember where

I put the cane. I remind myself:

weather changes. This land

will be dry again. There will

be drought.

Come back.