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?