Rain

or

I Think My Repeat Prescription's Getting Damp

May I speak to you, rain? Will you grant me an audience?

There are confessions to be made, rain. Down on one knee,

head bent- will you listen to me? Oh rain.

You see, rain, you have been mistreated. I shake. You have

been mocked, oh mighty moving water. And will you please

listen to me? Even if only briefly? Oh rain.

Games are played with your name, rain. You give us a drop

and we call it a shame. We make short rhymes and tell you to

go away. And there has to be another day. Oh rain.

We cliché you, rain. Can you countenance this? We cat and dog

you; we say that you pour; we say that you piss. Take yourself away

and it’s all quickly amiss. We dance and kill. Oh rain.

Names are given, small categories. You are light and heavy, shower

and drizzle, spits and spots, deluge, monsoon- cloud-riddles. We

quiver. Can you be tamed with a name? Oh rain.

I’ve heard at burials your visit can bring luck. To others you’re a reckoning,

come to destroy those of us stuck in sin, so bad, rotten within. Each of us due

to drown like a rat. We made up a story about that. Oh rain.

I could point to your homophones: holding horses and toddlers, guarding

thrones. But, rain, I’ll desist. On one knee, I’ll insist, just a few seconds

more. The cascading depths, the awe! Oh rain.

You see, I know what you feel when you let yourself go- little mankind

rushing to, rushing fro, as if we actually had somewhere to go. And dreaming

of control. You splash us awake and let us know. Oh rain.

When you come, rain, the earth smells good, it really does. You celebrate

the frog, unearth the worm. But why the rumble, now? Do you think I am trying

to assay you? On the sodden street, outside a law firm? Oh rain.

Rain, all the chemists are closed. Are you something I dream up in the sponge

hours imposed this Sunday, bloating and thick? And please, one more thing

to say. If I rhyme you with pain, will you wash it away? Oh