inspired by Landscape at Auvers in the Rain by Vincent van Gogh and Rain at Auvers by Kayleen Asbo
Sometimes when it rains
I forget it will ever stop raining.
The rain, it falls,
it falls for days, it falls,
and the rain becomes
a metric imperative,
insistent as a stop watch,
familiar as the pulsing
of blood in the heart,
a throbbing, a beat so adamant
I forget any other tune.
Did you forget, Vincent,
the rain would stop?
Did you feel inside you
a storm as urgent, as bold,
as the rain you painted
long diagonal strokes?
I can’t look at your painting
without feeling inside me the rain,
the rain, feel it slant across my world
in thick dark lines.
I can’t look at the purples
and yellows of Auvers
without remembering how days
after you painted these hues,
you would take your life.
But how could I vilify the storm
even knowing what I do?
You found in the tumult
light.
You fueled the dampened, darkened world
with ecstatic gold.
You didn’t push the storm away, Vincent.
You let it drench you.
You shared with us all
how struggle, too,
is so terribly, terribly
beautiful.
Posts Tagged ‘rain’
Looking at Landscape at Auvers in the Rain
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, rain, Van Gogh on June 29, 2022| 4 Comments »
Acceptance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, grief, rain on March 10, 2022| 13 Comments »
Today grief is a long steady rain
and the thing to do is to walk
in the long and steady rain.
The thing is to let the face
get wet, let the clothes get wet,
let the hair get wet and plastered
against the cheeks, the neck.
The thing is to meet the soaking world
and the soaking skin and the soaking
shoes and the soaking dreams
and not pretend it’s dry.
Whatever longing there is for dryness,
it is soaking too. Because it is raining,
the thing to do is to walk in the long
and steady rain, to walk in sodden,
soaking world, to trust that it will
not rain forever, to breathe in the scent
of the wet, wet earth, to be wet
in the wet, wet world.
An Elegy for the Lover
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged elegy, laurie wagner buyer, love, rain on July 13, 2021| 4 Comments »
for Laurie Wagner Buyer
I remember her handwritten letters—
her careful cursive telling
me about freezing the ripe plums
and the tree in the back yard
and sitting in the passenger seat
watching the world go by.
I remember walking with her
and admiring the sway
of her hips, her generous smile,
how everyone turned to watch her.
But most of all I remember
the way she loved to fall in love—
how she gave herself over so completely
to partnership. There are some
who love like virga—the rain
that falls but never reaches the land.
But she loved like a long steady rain—
the kind that seeps in slowly
and reaches the deepest roots.
The kind of rain that makes the whole world
glisten. The kind of rain
she might have written me about—
how it drizzles down the windows,
clings to the pane, how in every drop,
if you look, you can resee the world.
Dear friends, I am well aware there are two amazing Laurie Wagner Buyer poets. This one is about the Laurie Wagner Buyer who lived in Texas.
In the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, rain, thunder, weather on June 3, 2021| 2 Comments »
your
words
a clap
of
thunder
lightning
striking
close
and
me
without
an
umbrella
down
these
cheeks
it
must
be
the
rain
One Capitulation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged rain, surrender on July 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, green, patience, prayer, rain, reslilience on July 21, 2020| 4 Comments »
Oh green, I miss you,
miss how you used
to flourish in me,
no matter how brittle,
how brown I’d become.
I didn’t know then
I took you for granted.
I miss your softness,
your tenderness,
all the promise inside you,
the sunlight you carry
in your veins.
Some days I remember
what it is to be green.
Some days, when it’s gray,
I tell myself green is possible again.
Some days, when the rain
still doesn’t fall,
I practice how to break.
Some days, I swear I’ll find a way
to become green again,
no matter how unlikely,
how parched this field.
Somedays, though I long since
forgot how to pray,
the prayers find me anyway
and my empty hands
will not come down.
Transformation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, prayer, rain, storm, transformation on July 17, 2020| 9 Comments »
You need a rainstorm.
—Paula Lepp
I need a rainstorm
on the inside, the kind
that relentlessly pours,
the kind that rearranges
everything, leaves nothing
untouched. I need a deluge
that drowns out any voices
that would offer easy answers.
I need a cloudburst to flood
everything I think I know,
that carries me until I, too, am current.
Have I gotten so dry inside,
so brittle and sure?
Give me a gulley washer,
the kind that scours
and remakes its path as it flows.
I want it, and yet
when I feel the first drops
I scramble for the umbrella,
as if it would do any good.
There it is, petrichor—
earthy fragrance of change.
The big rain will come when it comes.
There will be no stopping it then.
Thirsty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, drought, rain on May 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »
At last, the rain,
a furious rain,
that turned into
tiny fists of hail,
shredding leaves
and pummeling
everything it met,
it rained as if
one day, charged
with intensity,
might change
a hundred days
of drought—
and, oh, the world after,
bruised and shining, still thirsty.
One Bidding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, rain, thirst on May 12, 2020| 4 Comments »
waking to rain
what is driest in me
reshapes itself
into a beggar’s bowl
puts itself in my hands
One Especially When It Rains
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, loss, ocean, poem, poetry, rain on January 15, 2020| 2 Comments »