No wonder the rain rarely falls
in parallels, always nudging walls
toward noticeable leanings. The atmosphere
teeming with invisible, moving things:
sentient wind ruffling the leaves, sentence
ending for lack of breath. Before
it begins again. Light breaking
past their allotted brilliances,
dismantled dark, peeling barks
of trees. Maybe you can hear it
as well-- see it gliding in the firmament,
stirring under the stone’s bottom
the swelling voice that sends wisps of hair
flying across a woman’s face, bristling
in the petals of surrounding wildflower,
firm and unconvinced stems holding in
the pollen, resisting bees. The woman sits
in the shade, thinking of how she gained
this strange patience, how come
she can now hear foolish comforts,
distant chimes, sway of far away song.
She has a story to tell, but how her words
would quiver in the telling. And she is older.
She remembers when she was still
rushing toward rain, her young body stumbling
over to the next, fluid, and, she had thought,
moving forever. Can you hear me? There is
aching everywhere, shadows hovering over
our shoulders. Small whispers. And I am
leaning over, equally soaked, hushed as well.
For Mikael
***
Christmas
Caught by the evening darting
into darkness, pursuing stars and fire-
flies. How flimsy, how brittle the years.
And how they fly by— breaking
so many hearts, wrinkling too many
hands. And mellowed now the colors,
lingering and yellow. This much
I know, dull glow on sunlit faces
and clever placings of days, those
gilded edges of Poinsettias, vivid
red and solid green, children waiting
in grand seasons, for Christmas.
For Sasha
