Jan 16, 2008 13:39
Rain Rain
by David Liao
The drops collect in my notebook
So I must write fast.
It comes just like any other rain,
As it bounces itself off my polyurethane-coated jacket.
The shower stops almost as if in fear
Then it resumes in force driving down.
They are clear nearly invisible arrows striking the sidewalk.
And I walk slower now as I realize what the rain is.
I am beginning to get soaked but I don't care.
At first I think it's just the sound of the rain,
A pitter patter I call it but that is not how to describe it.
Rain that came here to babble in a Brooklyn stream
must make do with burbling its way through the drainage holes in a porch.
As its companions tapdance behind me,
the unseen nearly everyday spectacle then becomes clearer,
This is an ocean going into the sky trying to reconstitute itself here
Trying each time not to drown us but bring calmly violent beauty.
You're walking through an ocean grated by clouds and air
and all you can do is be awed by all of it.
The safest swimming there is and you experience it drop by drop
just where you walk and splash your way home.
It is easy to forget this when we see rain through plastic windows and TV screens
but I will not forget as the rain recedes again only to come again soon...
poetry,
rain rain,
rain