Audre Lorde: "Coping"

It has rained for five days
running

the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

"Coping" by Audre Lorde. Text as published in The Collected Poems of Audre Lord (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997).

Art credit: Untitled photograph by Arjan de Jager/iStock International.