The World is Stingy & Today You Get a Poem.

For every farmer,
There is such a thing as
One Tornado Too Many.

My grandmother prayed
To the famous Nine Nails,
Spent the last family dollar
On a candle, for hope.

She prayed for rain,
Probably harder than most of us have prayed for anything;
And it rained
And it flooded
And it wiped out her livelihood,
Again.

But it doesn’t take the noose of prayer
To sully you to the idea of planting,
Tending, kneeling head-bent in the dirt,
Organizing and filing the paperwork,
Just to see it all dashed,
Again.

Why must some of us grow?
We could just eat,
Just sit back and forget to worry;
Others would do it for us.
There will be words without me,
There will be flowers without you;
There were flowers at grandmother’s funeral.
She didn’t pray for them at all.

I’ve got my own Novena;
Works like a charm, always brings the rain
That spatters the windows just right
Through the nights of despair.

But for every farmer,
There is such a thing as
Again.

…(c) and stuff.