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.