California Dry, by Patricia L. Scruggs

Patricia L. Scruggs lives in Southern California. She is the author of Forget the Moon (2015). Her work has appeared in ONTHEBUS, Spillway, RATTLE, Calyx, and Cultural Weekly, among others, as well as the anthologies 13 Los Angles Poets, So Luminous the Wildflowers, and Beyond the Lyric Moment.

About the poem:

Last summer, during our 5-year drought, I began listing all of the names of places that were burning or had burned that year. I noted how many bore the names of saints. A poem began to emerge. The rest is court reporting of an incident during water aerobics and the scene around us—taking in the beauty of the day while parts of California were burning.