Poetry by Jodi Lundgren
By Jodi Lundgren
After months of drought
rain fell all day
and kept falling all night.
Around three a.m.,
sloshing water woke us.
We tiptoed to the window:
raccoons!
In a sudden, deep puddle,
dark furred shapes dove and rolled.
They wrestled, belly-flopped,
playfought, too young
to have ever known a downpour,
born to glory in it.
By morning, the ground
had swallowed the pool
but held a cluster
of five-fingered runes.
Seize
the night and dive,
for tomorrow
the puddle’s
dry. 
- Jodi Lundgren’s previous publications include the novels Touched and Leap. Her poetry has recently appeared in Dear Vaccine, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye et al. and in Even So, I Sing, edited by Lorna Crozier. She is a settler of English and Danish descent on Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ territory.
Copyright©2024 by Jodi Lundgren. All Rights Reserved. Image: creator: yotto | Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto