Tag Archives: rain

Mildest Day, mid-November

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Mildest Day, mid-November

 

It’s the mildest day in weeks, in the neighborhood the heat pumps are quiet
and where last night was dry wind raising the leaves for another ride tonight

the rain wanders in around dinnertime, so fine you can’t even feel it but in the beam
of a parked truck’s headlights it looks like it is pouring. Later it will rain hard

but it’s here mostly for the duration, to check off the seconds of  the night, like a reminder,
that the next one will be colder and harder, and that after that there will be snow.

The Sound

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The Sound

 

Today the sound of rain is over my head, in the leaves.
For a month it will get more and more silent

As the canopy thins, even as each drop more directly
hits its mark it will be more and more like a whisper

of something going away, until the level of leaf is ground
and then in the first cold rain a new sound like a cough

rattling to life instead of death, louder and colder will
arise from the earth, for a few times anyway reminding

us that nothing not even death stops talking until the
first snowflake tells it utterly and quietly to shut up.

Reflections, Early October Rain

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Reflections, Early October Rain

 

In the rain on the street’s surface
each house shimmers its inner life

when my eyes water with memory
the homes break into ten thousand drops

Consequence

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Consequence

 

Rain on a day off differs
from rain on a business day.

On the road it is fine but soaking.
Under the tree one is protected

from rain’s penetrating consistency
though drops recombine sometimes

on their way through the leaves
with larger consequence

Self Portrait with Canopy of Trees, Answering an Old Zen Koan, Maybe

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Self Portrait with Canopy of Trees, Answering an Old Zen Koan, Maybe

Two hundred thousand hands
are clapping for the rain

After Rain, Foothills

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After Rain, Foothills

 

Remnants of clouds
wasps hovering over the hollows

The storm a black wall in the sky
a father turning his back

cars break the quiet
thoughts attending their own wake

and now you
are you you or what you mean

Late Afternoon Storm Haiku

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Late Afternoon Storm Haiku
[Wilmington, NC]

 

Storm fells big branches
while gossamer lines linger—
the strand between us

*

Long after strong rain
moves on, forgotten, moss on
branches remembers

*

Light flickers inside and out.
Dove on shed roof hears
a thousand unseen frogs

*

The day starts again
hours before dusk. In sunlight
palmetto fronds drip.

Summer Song

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Summer Song

 

Distant motorbike resonates like a bullfrog
in the summer dark, a mating call of bars

closing and the steam of recent rain
rising to the reducing horizon

Rained Out

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Rained Out

 

I never swore I would not write a softball poem!
Darkness strides down the high hill towards the field.

Taking its time so the mist beneath it can depend
like a hanging plant, motionless every time you look.

I turn away to watch the game but something taps my shoulder–
the first drops of rain. People are running for their cars

With their softball gloves on their heads. Though it lasts
only five minutes, the rain turns the red clay infield

Into a giant thumb print of the storm. The umpire
examines it like a tired detective then calls it a night.

Unaffected as true fans, the bluebirds whir and swerve
across the outfield, shagging flies.