Rain

(This is more than nine years old. It was one of my first dozen or so posts. Thought I'd share it again since it's rained so much this spring.)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

rain

It is raining now. I hear it through the open window of the little office space where I sit and type.

Rain. how wondrous the sound, the smell, the dampness of it all. Calling the world back to life after a long winter.

I love the rain.

The only poem I've written that I can remember that has to do with rain is this one--and you have to wait until near the end to find the rain....be patient, it is, after all, a virtue.


I AM SURROUNDED BY POETRY

I am surrounded by poetry
I will never write.

The old man down the block
with his droopy moustache
and the dog he used to walk, long dead now.
The particular shade of orange in this morning's sky
and the wondrous pink as evening came.
The down on the neck of a woman I once loved
who never knew I loved her.
And her seashell ears.
The bend of her slim elbow.
Her ears--I mentioned that already.
The leafy, logical pattern of ice on my windshield
one January morning--
like something a chaos physicist
would have adored.
What smoke feels like in my lungs
when I inhaled deeply on a cigarette.
The particular color of the eyes
of a crazy man I talked to and gave two dollars today.
My dreams--coming on me like a tsunami these days--
endless vistas with old friends,
walking through amber when I need to run,
conversations with those long dead,
hard work to accomplish less than nothing.
The smell of skunk standing on my deck.
The taste of coffee ice cream.
The feel of the hair of my Puli dog.
The sight of a woman, walking fast,
staying in shape, fending off death,
by walking fast past my house.
Hearing anything by Mozart on the radio.
And just the way it feels to be inside my skin,
how I can count my bones,
if I would stand still long enough
and count.
The many ways I imagine death.

And there is no time, no time at all,
since I am growing old.
There is no time, no time at all,
to write the poems that surround me.

And what about the dimples my daughter has?
And the strange way new money looks?
And how my wine glass is empty?
And the wear on the 'n' on my keyboard?
And how the ringing in my ears is sometimes a sonata?
And what the night sky resembles?
And the air under my fingernails and the gaps between my teeth?
And the sound of rain, rain's smell, all of raining.

What is unworthy of a poem?
Nothing, so far as I can see.

And I don't have the time.
Surrounded by poetry, I have no time to write.