We

I’m gratified by the use of the word we

In the sentence my neighbor utters quietly

As she stands in her driveway, in her yellow raincoat—

“We really needed this rain”—

A we that includes not only a gray-haired white man

And a Black woman whose hair is still dark but also

Some of the green life we’ve gathered about us:

The pin oaks and silver maples, the holly

And lilac and dogwood, whose ancestors

Did what they could to make a home here

Millions of years before our ancestors

Walked down the gangway of a steamer from Bremen

Or were led in chains from a sailing ship

That had left Sierra Leone two months before.

We needed this rain to remind us we don’t dwell

In a desert we have to cross to reach a promised land.

Here we are in the land of promises

Kept and not kept that we’ve promised ourselves

To be concerned with. Look how these trees

Are concerning themselves with the rain

That the grass is already welcoming

With many shades of a deeper green.