It Was All for Him

I strolled upon the Brooklyn Bridge one day,

Beneath the storm;

None but a lad in rags upon the way

I saw;—there on a bench he lay

Heedless of form.

He seemingly was reading what the Shower

Was publishing upon the Bridge and down the Bay;

Yet he was writing, writing at this hour,—

Writing in a careless sort of way.

Upon a pad he scribbled and as fast the rain

Retouched, effaced, corrected and revised.

Was he recording Nature’s solemn strain,

Or sketching choristers therein disguised?

Whatever it be, I found myself quite by his side:

My nod and smile he pocketed and wrote again;

“Read me your drizzling stuff,” I said, and he replied:

“I’ve written a check in payment for this shower of rain.”

Source: Grape Leaves: A Centur of Arab American Poetry (University of Utah Press, 1988)