The solar system is placid now. 
Two cows, one white, one black, 
stand knee deep in a ditch, pink udders 
 
swaying in the grass. Once 
comets rained ice, fizzled in fire, 
melted into water and green plants,  
 
melted into cows and zinnias and belief, 
a little white church surrounded by  
crumbling tombstones of children. 
 
Once an asteroid brought ice 
to cool the earth’s fiery red crust. 
Now there are gardens and gardeners 
 
to praise the damp islands of perennials, 
the tomato vines, the squash, and lettuce. 
Four billion years burned before water, 
 
hundreds of millions more before milk,
before my days spent teaching students  
from Sudan, from Ethiopia, from Salvador,  
 
from Rockville, and Germantown 
to cool a fiery idea with evidence, 
to correct comma splices 
 
and sentence fragments. I call out  
to the believers in the burning world 
among whom I count myself, 
 
come see the calm puddles: blue cornflowers,  
goldenrod, the serene little skunk drinking  
from the roadside ditch full of skittering tadpoles.