Rain Song

“Rich showering rain and recompense richer afterward.” —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

 

Feelin', feelin' good, down-fallin' down

rain, rain, rain came today,

wet alfresco alchemy,

welcome in my dry-so-long brain.

 

Walkin' through drip thick sound

crushed, splayed cloud thickets——

even irony washing by rivers full

out of my gray desert head.

 

Over the dripping haze days

of my dry now-again-alive those

until otherwise arid skin-and-bones

burdens flushed clean as wild-a-way.

 

Rained, to this season's dense roots

I rise, rise, surprised anew. A new fluid

song in some druid-ancient oak trunk,

or my garden's favorite yellow rose.

 

Or better watered yet, Walt's own wit

witness of green goings-on. Washed down

leaves of all-again we're forever grass:

with life rising, risen from it.