A drop.  Two drops.  Then the sky lets go.
Air turns to ocean, ocean to refuge.
Umbrella has to go.  I drop it in a bin
With an acid-streaked label says H e l
The  H meless.   Me, I am most at home
When rain is walling.  Steady shhhhhhh
Shushes the clamor.  My own personal
Cocoon,   Quilt great granny stitched
With arthritic fingers,  People gave
Her clothes that had seen better days,
And she cut them into triangles, circles,
And squares.  Pieced together, they
Told many a tale.  Still hear rain make
That unholy racket because the roof
Of her shotgun hovel was tin.  Deaf
By fifty, she blamed the sawmill
Down the road a piece that had killed
Her husband, thank-the-Lawd.  If rain
Rat-a-tatting on the roof helped, good.
Lot worse things than not hearing folk,

We shared a love of rain, the sunbonnet
Pattern, and quiet.  She lost a son to
A forgotten war,  Raymond was her first.
Sky, please don’t run out of water,
So good to swim in this warm silver
Sea.  To feel my way, you know?  To be
A child, unheard and unseen, as I wand
Myself to an angelfish or jump in a puddle
thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis  biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig.

(c) Phyllis Jean Green,  April, 2011