The rain takes us out like a boat at sea
With sirens at daybreak, as if loose from moorings,
The electrical flare fills the low pressure sky
With freedom’s wide gallop, across the void.
And it seems like it might be the end now
- Nerve endings are throbbing with pain
Like beasts have come into our ghostly bodies,
Our consciousness wanes, our touch is less feeling,
The rain blocks all vents and all drains
As we’re breathing; there are so many things one can die of
- Add lightning from fast-moving skies to the list
With ulcers and ruptures and motorcycle accidents –
In this rain there’s no past and no future
Just something you have to sit still through
- A clatter of pearls on the roof – in panic:
Will the body give way? Is it there to betray me?
When I ask that question, then and only then
Do I see it’s the earth’s way of healing, the summer squalls
And fearful diseases are its’ kindest ways of speaking
To ears waxed with lack of understanding;
Life and death rides above, a matter of electricity
That says "no" for us and listens in return, and in that drum,
In that silence, then, and then only
The storm lifts to a blue morning shine.
