NORMAL
In the background, the weathermen
have been waffling for a week,
clouds sailing north, early green
gone gray, red to purple fillaree
crisp the clay south slopes – needing
a drink, my father used to say.
A crescendo, a growing grumble
normal along the foothills between
rains, old men remembering
years in my mind: thirty-nine
and forty-seven – and seventy-seven
we somehow survived.
We are the oak trees and the grass,
we are the hillsides almost
always waiting for a rain.