Metronome     It is August, but chilly in the foothills;
winter teases the garden and it bows its bounty.
Dying rain tum-tee-dums off the deck roof:
a disembodied heart.  I too beat.  Am dying.
There is no work for this too-much-bodied self
of dysfunction;  my only task can be
to hear, in the rain, music or words, and
release them onto paper or to thin air.
Always, I have cherished the melancholy that is rain
but today it echoes an insistent inward tapping. 
I am not happy. A thousand days;  no, more.
And so?  There are no promises.
At one time I was a garden -- bold, bedecked
beautiful, and rain was my god.  Of course
I need it more now, sensing the final frost. 
I am tapping keys, tum-tee-dum. 
A man loves me.  His problems are more immediate,
a leaking roof.   If he wants, he can see the sky
from his kitchen in the faraway  fields, 
but he will only get his eyes wet.
His eyes are already clouded.
Should it not be enough to have such eyes,
an intact roof and a heater by one's side?
Apparently not.   It is time to lie down.
Alone. Alone. 
Rain can be a torrent, but each drop travels alone.

Copyright Julianza Shavin 2008