Hijira

One day the rains began and show no sign of stopping
the politicians told us we were in severe drought
now everywhere is flooding, the water lies
about in the rice paddies to the north
as far as the eye can see and
geese by many thousands
bed in them
as they rest between
flights further south where
warmer weather like a siren calls
to them each year, would I could join
their flight to freedom much older than the Hijira
never in my wildest dreams did I suppose a weak economy
would abandon me in this working class neighborhood in this
little house which was too small from the day we moved in, I wish
like a snake I could shed my old skin and begin a new life somewhere
I’ve never been, don’t tell me it is too late or that I am stuck with this incompatible mate for life for I like John Paul Jones, I have not yet begun to fight and all this has been the warm up to the greater things which I alone know I am capable of and need no heaven above or hell below to prod me along in the right direction Christ’s resurrection is reborn each day a thousand times a million
ways as one cell dies another is born, the rain drops from above awake
the sleeping seeds within the soil and all the hills turn emerald