When I posted “Creation Song” a few weeks ago I mentioned that it was something of an oldie, but compared to the poem below, it’s still young! “Praying for Rain” came out of a poetry writing class I took as an undergrad in February 2001! I’d been writing poetry for several years at that point, but it was the first poem I felt truly proud of–proud enough to share it in class, which for an introvert like me is saying something. It mingles images from my childhood home with a vivid dream I had not too long before writing it. Even after 15 years, I still like it and I hope you do too!

Praying for Rain

Home, with its azure skin
painstakingly applied
in the searing summer sun,
and its shaded jungle of a yard
overrun with vines,
and protective hummingbirds dive-bombing
the cat, killing his curiosity,
and the blossoms of the silverberry tree
strewn across the yard
like ashen fingerprints –
all this is home,
all this is my world,
all this is burning.