we watched the old man
Build his doohiggy in the yard
For a hundred years
We mocked
his talk of “rain”
Unaltering our behavior
To the very end
Through the procession of paired creatures
Too quiet, too orderly, in hindsight
No longer
surprised when he shuts up his wooden spaceship
Seven day still
Then
Come rain
Rise relentless river
Through the rooms of our careless together
Drips, drops, seep, torrent, flood
words we coin
In the last moments of our lives
As the world entire
Recedes
Perhaps if birds
Could bring the rain
We would seed our yards,
Learn their calls
Keep the cats inside.
/beckon to them with fields of sunflowers
/covet their myriad congregation along electrified wires
Build their houses
Guard their nests
Stay all our empty words
For a mated call to water
My children play
Duck, duck, goose
With rich adjectival muster-
medium-sized duck, superhero duck
Yell Goose! and always be prepared to run
Anthropomorphize these missing storms
See sparrows in each laden cloud
Sow the fields with barley
Surely they will love barley
And swoop down toward us
“with healing in his wings”
All our science is naught
Fruitless and pendant
Cotton in the mouth
We cry
medium-sized rain, superhero rain,
Or no rain at all
Because we have forgotten…
He said fire the next time
We sleep in boats
Strewn out across
An unending sea
Cling to blankets, shelter, each other
An archipelago of contained air
All that holds us
Up inflatable dinghies,
Flotsam unstable
We call to each other
Sun-drenched dazed
Testing our new words
Like… beach balls….
Flood….
Antediluvian–
post-apocalyptic always
Cup your hands
Across your eyes
Look to the deep
Where the leviathan hides
Home.
Carrying Light 