portrait of the rain

it appears as a hand-kiss, gentle nudge,

spray of memory: remember

where you came from, frog.

or galloping, as a thundering horde,

to tender unto caesar what is caesar’s,

until everything flees into the entryways

under the cover of newspapers

and briefcases: whoever listens at the open window

senses that he may be dry, but the weather

has long since been inside him.

or how the gutters become musical,

when laundry lifts off the lines

and rivers flow out of their beds,

and the secret scent of earth and asphalt

unveils itself; when mushrooms, mosses,

vineyard snails run rampant;

it makes the outlines visible: where rain ends,

we begin.

it treks across the landscape like a circus,

the spectacle and curtain at the same time:

scenery loft of the great weather-

and wandering theaters; bestows upon blonds

darker hair, and on the bald the radiance

of billiard balls; to the hens it is a cage

that doesn’t imprison them. so often divined,

yet no church is founded on it.

good ears can still hear,

if you bend low enough,

the songs of humpback whales, glacier calving—

one geyser over north america

inspires umbrellas to blossom

from shanghai to rome.

each drop contains the whole book, water,

particles, pollen, all the dirt of the world.

resurrection—the easiest exercise.

meanwhile it slumbers in car tires

and from puddles and cisterns

stares back toward its own origin,

while the trees for hours and hours

are immersed in their soliloquies.

the soothing swoosh between the radio transmitters.

the wind in the forests yet to come.