American rain
This morning – as if rain could save us now –
we wake to a scrim of sound obscuring
trucks on the highway while they blindly plow
forth like old preachers. Rain’s steady mooring.
How many poets call rain small fingers?
It is all I can see. How drops caress
the leaves of those tall sunflowers, linger.
Slide away, a synchrony of largesse.
Can we be like rain again, gathering?
This faint thunder deep inside our bellies
subsides while a chorus swells, clamouring.
Morning bird cry, sharp and clear. It carries
us, rain. Smattering, we are drenched clean
again. Skin coalescing into green.
Ellen Stone advises a high school poetry club and co-hosts a monthly poetry series in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she raised three daughters with her husband. She taught special education in the public schools in Kansas and Michigan for over thirty years. Ellen loves rain and rhubarb, hound dogs and hillsides. She is the author of What Is in the Blood, (Mayapple Press, 2020) and The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers, 2013). Reach Ellen at www.ellenstone.org.