sometimes we think we are gods
that we know everything
that in our wakeful moments
we are creating universes
even when the desert sun
visits the Northwest for days on end
we think if we keep our wits about us
the rains will return on schedule
meanwhile my husband shields the glass
of every window with shades or tarps
monitors the garden’s irrigation
fills the jugs with water
we huddle indoors
doing our inner work
until the cop shows up on the stoop
brandishing a colorful bouquet
she wears dark navy with heavy boots
belt of cop business weighting her hips
her hair in a tight red knot
she tarries in the garden
says a perp confessed to stealing flowers
on our corner–the Russian sage a likely match
to the purple in her hand
gods that we are we don’t press charges
I wonder for whom he gathers
flowers from others–
in my universe I’d plunder the blueberries
Rachel Barton: Inada’s poem felt really Big. I felt that the child’s perspective of holding his universe together through his vigilance was also an adult perspective. We each have our ideas of what we can control or manifest. This brought me to my local experience of climate change and the various “insurances” we enact against it. But then the outer world intervened and took over the poem. Happy surprise!
