With the patience of radishes
                        whose crisp spheres ripen underground,
            she moves through her house, out to her patio,
                        steps through the creek and moves to her fields—
            shoes wet, but what's the harm?  Nothing at all to she
                        who baptizes The Baptizer, bathes
            her San Juanito in that little creek to increase
                        the likelihood of downpours
            in these months of drought.  An important
                        portion of the universe turns
            on this power of hers, hinges
                        on the prayerful works of comadres—
            Christianity folds easily
                        into this ancient cosmology, magic
            that quantum physics can only restate:
                                    as you sow, so shall you reap—
                        ask, and you shall receive.


Copyright © Maria Melendez, 2005. All Rights Reserved.