Hope

It started out as snow,
oh,
big flakes
floating
softly,5
catching on my sweater,
lacy on the edges of my sleeves.

Snow covered the dust,
softened the
fences,10
soothed the parched lips
of the land.

And then it changed,
halfway between snow and rain,
sleet,15
glazing the earth.

Until at last
it slipped into rain,
light as mist.

It was the kindest20
kind of rain
that fell.

Soft and then a little heavier,
helping along
what had already fallen25
into the
hard-pan
earth
until it
rained,30
steady as a good friend
who walks beside you,
not getting in your way,
staying with you through a hard time.

And because the rain came35
so patient and slow at first,
and built up strength as the earth
remembered how to yield,
instead of washing off,
the water slid in,40
into the dying ground
and softened its stubborn pride,
and eased it back toward life.

And then,
just when we thought it would end,45
after three such gentle days,
the rain
came
slamming down,
tons of it,50
soaking into the ready earth
to the primed and greedy earth,
and soaking deep.

It kept coming,
thunder booming,55
lightning
kicking,
dancing from the heavens
down to the prairie,
and my father60
dancing with it,
dancing outside in the drenching night
with the gutters racing,
with the earth puddled and pleased,
with my father’s near-finished pond filling.65 

When the rain stopped,
my father splashed out to the barn,
and spent
two days and two nights
cleaning dust out of his tractor,70
until he got it running again.
In the dark, headlights shining,
he idled toward the freshened fields,
certain the grass would grow again,
certain the weeds would grow again,75
certain the wheat would grow again too.

May 1935