September 2010 – Anna Citrino—Poetry, Place, Pilgrimage

Reasons for Rain

Colliding beads. The soaring chunks and crawling legs
of rain. How the water jumps from the rooftop in a
cataract gallop, creeps in under the balcony door. How it
scuttles along the stone, leaps across the sky in thrums
and waves of thunderous hooves from herds of running beasts.
Winds blow across the plains of oceans where mountains
we do not see block the clouds and the rain falls. Monsoon, and
this is the way the world becomes: Drizzling darkness day after
day, rain rolling down. Mold covers cloth, grows inside
the grain of doors. Drop by drop, water rises. Roads turn to river.
Steadily, the rain clatters on plates of leaves, and I wonder, as I
lie between damp sheets in my bed, how did Noah feel, the beams
of his boat filled with must as he watched thunder clouds push against
the mountain of sky, drop by drop the roofs, the roads, the world he knew
covered over, dissolved, even though he understood the cause?

Before Moving On

After working all day, we set out
down our driveway with the green arch
of trees reaching over the road. We pass through
redwoods, and glide under branches past
the narrow necklace of stream rolling down
banks of thick earth, then pull up to the main road
and stop. It’s a kind of ritual we go through
each time we come to the crossroad. I look back
up around the corner to the right, past the tall strands
of wild grass, trees and shrubs that have grown up there,
and are rarely trimmed back. I pause and peer
through the branches, twigs, and shadows, waiting
to see if a car, or bicyclist might come racing past.
And there we hesitate, like birds poised on
the edge of flight, lifting and cocking their heads
to gaze into the sky the moment before
raising their wings for the long trip south.
“Yes,” I might say, or, “Wait,” while a
slender-legged deer rounds the bend
and trots past. All our journeys, into town
or half way round the world hinge
on the trust inside those words.

Month: September 2010

2nd response to observations of things rain does

Observation of an everyday activity that has an important impact: