sometimes hope

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collage in progress / shf

dries up in the heat of August when

what was a force tumbling down the mountain

has left the creek bed brittle and the rocks parched

and roasting under the drenching sun

and you try to remember what it is like in winter

after the gray days of rain when the creek sounds like a gargling goddess

and you wonder what it means that things just up and disappear

that the realness of one moment dissolves into what is no longer

and you wonder if you can get through winter to summer to winter again

through all the floods and evaporations

the shifts that measure your patience in raindrops and sundials

in mud and cracked earth

and you wonder what it means to know what will happen

that water will run and then will run out

that hope will be sometimes

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