Drought
By Tracy K. Smith

1.
The hydrangea begins as a small, bright world.
Mother buries rusty nails, and the flowers
Weep blue and pink. I am alone in the garden,
And like all else that is living, I lean into the sun.

Each bouquet will cringe and die in time
While the dry earth watches. It is ugly,
And the earth is ugly to allow it. Still, the petals
Curl and drop. Mother calls it an exquisite waste,

But there is no choice. I learn how:
Before letting go, open completely.
Wait. When the heavens fail to answer,
Curse the heavens. Wither and bend.


2.
We go to the lake. I am the middle son
And most beautiful, my face and chest,
All of me, brown with sun. I ride to the lake
With my brothers and sister, and the smells
Of asphalt and dirt fill me with happy rage.
I am twelve, and the voices I carry know how to obey.
When the blades of grass catch my spokes,
There is a quick twit when the blades snap.

The others giggle near shore but I am swimming
Toward the island in the center, a vacant country.
The black water bids me farther.
Out past the tiny people speckling the lake
To the cold, cold center and that island’s empty shore.
The syllables of my name skip across like smooth stone,
And when they reach me, my lungs shrink to fists.
I flail upright and the waves lash out in my wake.


3.
Not the flame, but what it promised.
Surrender. To be quenched of danger.
I torched toothpicks to watch them
Curl around themselves like living things,
Panicked and aglow. I would wake,
Sheets wrinkled and damp, and rise
From that print of myself,
That sleep-slack dummy self.
Make me light.

No one missed my shadow
Moving behind the house, so I led it
To the dry creek-bed and laid it down
Among thistledown, nettle,
Things that hate water as I hate
That weak, ash-dark self.
I stood above it there,
A silent wicked thing that would not beg.
I crouched, and it curled before me.
I rose, and it stretched itself, toying.

And the brambles whispered.
And my hands in their mischief.

A spasm, a spark, a sweet murmuring flame
That swallowed the creek-bed and spread,
Mimicking water. A gorgeous traffic
Flickering with light, as God is light.
I led my shadow there and laid it down.
And my shadow rose and entered me.
And on the third day, it began to speak,
Naming me.

Drought Copyright © 2003 by Tracy K. Smith. Reprinted from The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith, with the permission of Graywolf Press.