ODA A DOÑA LANCHA

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.