I am endless rain, drowning dew, a green-spored parasol in tea-black soil. I am a puddle on the surface of grey-rock ledge the slippery sheen of slate stone. I’m coal black, wet tree trunks with their patches of vibrant, soft moss. I’m the bass notes of green frogs, the whir of toad songs, night bugs mating on a screen door in porch light. Ping-pong balls on a tin roof. My city is gone. I am soaking rain, humidity my perfume, curling hair frizz and damp-showered skin. I’m a shirt that sticks to slick backs. Insistent like a deep- tongued kiss. Languid, then lashing. My city is gone. I am a waterfall of rain, a driving deluge, my thunderous roar carving new river banks and felling shallow-footed tall white pines. I keep midnight company, create caverns out of concrete, carry the refuse of humanity from empty doorsteps. I pour into their bottomless secret places leaving dark, murky, stinking pools. My city is gone. I am a warning rain— I am tree-trunk tangles on railroad trestles, a deep crevasse where you used to drive home. I carry mountains to the other side of roads, twist bridges, spin cars in river eddies. I embrace the grit, scour it clean. I feed on warmth, build higher and higher into ever-thicker clouds heavy, full, and ready to utterly saturate earth’s dry, thirsty deserts or already-soaked spongy woodlands. I mist sprinkle pour drum pound. I never mourn— not cities, not roads, not homes . . . mud to the ankles, precious memorabilia, delayed plans, lost dreams.
July 10, 2023, Vermont