When it comes right down to the melody of rain
the road is a flute and the madrigal is made,
in the same way love is made,
from the actual falling itself.
Limiting ourselves to wind instruments,
because that is the club where the mouth,
as you know, is an indispensable member.
But whose soft O, whose parting lips,
whose unhinged jaw is responsible
for this foggy serenade, never to be had
the same way again?
As for the conduction, there are innumerable
variations. When the water is stilled and no longer
descending, that's when the bridge appears.
An in and out fugue that dutifully takes over:
The moon's thick sigh, the wind's twin coughs,
the clandestine whisper between the cow
and her mountain. These will each do
for they all capably contain the left, long ear of song.
A woman composed of rain is not a band
unto herself. Though some would argue
the lake that holds her shape alone is a royal
philharmonic. A constellational polyphony
that can crash two lily pads or keep two lily pads
from crashing. There are components reflected
off of a woman's body that could arrest
even an ant in his wandering from the dock.
So you see it's merely a tiny skitter in thought
from there to here, the place where one realizes
that a grandfather snoring under the flat,
magazine-sized leaves of the fig tree is himself
the wrinkled reed that the dust rises up to play.
As the island's only meteorologist I take great
solace in saying things like this: "Partly cloudy
skies will give way to mostly cloudy skies,
with a fair chance of a sprinkle." Drip by drop,
goes the melodic falling—rain entering and
departing through the small doors of the harmonica.
