Acts of God

This dry heat is killing the redbud trees.

You see them around town patched yellow

or completely brown, bewildered, I imagine.

I heard about the 7-year drought of Texas

in the fifties, rivers dried up, grass-fed cattle

dying, ranchers giving up and moving

to town to take up other trades.

When the rain finally came it would not stop.

Floods tore through the state wreaking

more havoc and another kind of destruction.

Some would call these things acts of God.

On today’s radio there are stories about the

failing corn crop, the soybeans that might

not make it, a crusty farmer’s voice saying

Now we’re just waiting on the good Lord.

But I like to imagine a God who neither acts

out of spite nor deals out cards good or bad,

but one who hopes for the best

wishes we could bloody well get it right

and whose patience far outlasts our own.