I live in the city.
If it doesn’t rain again this season,
farms in the delta will die.
The warming has already fucked up
the food chain in the ocean
and patterns of migratory birds.
The big fish are nearly gone.
I’m 45 years old: how many
more winters, how many rains?
In the late sun of my studio
I write to my niece, a child
who paints and takes ballet.
She’s four decades behind me.
What good are these words,
if they can’t call up a spell for her
to make it rain and seed the arid earth
deep and green, the way it was
in endless bloom before us?