Raindrop Wanderings

I fall from a cloud's soft workshop,
a bead of sky threading through cold air.

Sometimes winter grips me in crystal fingers,
and I become snow, drifting like a feather made of light.

There are times I harden into ice, a clear stone of silence.

As I descend, I gather stories:
smoke curling from chimneys, dust from tired roads,
golden pollen floating like tiny suns.

I carry gifts and scars alike,
a small glass traveler wearing the fingerprints of Earth.

I run through rivers that twist like silver snakes,
spread across lakes that hold the sky in their mirrors,
and roll into oceans, vast blue lungs breathing against the shore.
There I collect both wonder and weight:
the sparkle of mountain minerals,
the cool scent of pine forests,
but also oil-dark stains, bitter chemicals, and forgotten trash.

Sometimes I feel like a child carrying wildflowers;
sometimes like a pack animal bent beneath sacks of sorrow.
Every current pulls another burden into my transparent heart.

Then sunlight lifts me in warm invisible hands.
Puddles, rivers, and oceans evaporate;
water turns back into pure gas, into water vapor.
The heavy chemicals, dirt, and salts stay behind on Earth,
left like old coats abandoned at a doorstep.
Only clean vapor rises to form new clouds,
and the cycle largely resets.

I am born again, bright and unburdened,
a clean breath climbing the blue cathedral of the sky.

At the window, a child watches raindrops race down the glass,
their winding trails like tiny rivers searching for the sea.
The child presses a hand to the pane and whispers,

"Why does it rain?"