Today grief is a long steady rain
and the thing to do is to walk
in the long and steady of it.
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’s raining,
the thing to do is to walk in the long
and steady rain, to walk in the sodden,
soaking world, to trust that it will
not rain forever, to breathe in the scent
of the wet, wet earth, to kiss the rain,
to be kissed by the rain.
To be wet in the wet, wet world.
Posts Tagged ‘rain’
Acceptance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, grief, rain on March 10, 2022| 13 Comments »
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 »
One Drought
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, poem, poetry, rain on September 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
If Only All Change Were So Easy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, poem, poetry, rain, transformation on July 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Despite the News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, heart, opening, poem, poetry, rain on May 17, 2019| 3 Comments »
Again the rain,
and I wander
the tender green grass
of the field.
The hands pull weeds
because the hands
want something to do.
And the mind looks
for morels, because the mind
wants something to do.
And the feet wander,
because they are born
nomads. And the heart
opens. Not because
it wants to, but
because there is something
in the scent of rain
that suggests
so much is possible,
even, against all odds,
beauty. Even, though
it seems impossible,
another day.
The Girl Who Didn’t Want it to Rain
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accepance, poem, poetry, rain, surrender on November 18, 2018| 5 Comments »
After all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And so after shouting
and whining and begging
and crying and whimpering,
simpering, weeping and sniveling,
sobbing and blubbering, bawling
and name calling, wailing
and flailing and thrashing
and sprawling, and after the threats
and after the bribes, after
loudly groaning and prostrated moaning,
at last she was quiet and felt
against her cheek the damp,
and she noticed the whole
world a-glistening and she
walked in the rain, hair wet,
clothes wet, and instead
of complaining, she began
listening, listening
to the humble, beautiful
song of rain.
One Abandon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged abandon, poem, poetry, puddle, rain, surrender on October 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »
drenched in the downpour—
the feet, now reckless,
find a playground in every puddle
Riding My Bike Up to Sanborn Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bicycle, poem, poetry, rain, storm, vulnerability on September 2, 2018| 2 Comments »
Standing beneath the pinion tree
I am almost dry, while all around me
the rain almost attacks the road.
I lean my head against its shagging bark
and watch the world transform from dust
to shine. Thunder rends the darkened sky.
I knew when I began the ride
the rain was impatient.
I knew it would be no gentle shower.
How odd to trick myself into being
caught in a storm. How often I choose the gale.
Small bits of bark tear off in the wind,
fall to the cactus, the dirt. Eventually,
I am no longer content to watch
and pull my bike into the rain. Wasn’t
this what I wanted somehow, to be
unguarded, exposed, out? Within a minute
my clothes stick to my skin, and I shiver,
in part from the chill, in part because
I, too, have become a shining thing.
Challenge Lover’s Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged challenge, path, poem, poetry, rain on August 3, 2018| 2 Comments »
And let there be rain,
though the path is easier
when dry, and let there be
a bend in the road.
Let us think we know
where we are going—
and let us be wrong.
There are wings in us
we’ve forgotten.
Let us walk until
we remember them.
And then, let us walk
for the joy of walking.
Because puddles.
Because the path.
One Parenting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, parenting, poem, poetry, rain, teenage on August 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
After Months and Months of Drought
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, poem, poetry, rain on July 11, 2018| 4 Comments »
In the red mud, in the muck,
in the day’s surplus of luck,
the sudden rains make flood of wish
and fill the road with detritus
and we are stranded where we are
the roads all closed, and still, I hear
inside, some voice, insistent,
chanting More, more.
Wish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged father, Father's Day, healing, poem, poetry, rain on June 17, 2018| 6 Comments »
for my father
And when at last
the healing comes,
may it come like rain,
like rain after a long drought,
so soft that at first
you won’t be sure
it is raining,
but the fragrance
will overcome you,
green and wet,
and the world
will look dewy and
you’ll feel it in your lungs.
Yes, may the healing
arrive in a way that
astounds you,
as today when the rain turned
long and steady,
the kind that touches
and changes everything,
changes things so completely
you almost can’t remember
what it was like before,
yes, may healing come like this
so that everywhere you look,
all you see is promise.
Puddled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, invitation, poem, poetry, rain on April 7, 2018| 7 Comments »
Today it was the puddle
that woke up my heart,
the way it received the sky
and remade it in smeary mirrors
of grays beneath my feet.
How at first, I tried so hard to avoid it,
and then, once my feet were wet,
I could see it only as a way to play,
an invitation for joy. To splash
in the clouds. To splash for the pleasure
of splashing. To splash until
I could no longer recognize her, that part
of me who longed to stay safe, stay dry.