RAIN


July sun
           glitters like a yellow ice cube,

Green radiance drowns the squash vines.

Wisteria broods
           in its brown thirst.

Xeriscape
           of beebalm and calamint;
           horehound, hyssop, mullein,
           and purple coneflower.

*

The day moves out,
           reining a dark breeze
           that stirs the rose leaves.

At dusk,
           blood of mad rains in Embudo Channel.

In the drowned light after the water,
           the roses are quiet.

Arcturus rides in the thinning clouds.

*

Now in Virginia
rain on the kudzu and the pearly everlasting.

Black current of glimmering water,
Cats' eyes, chatoyant in the dark.

In Kyoto,

           a leaf falls
           from the hundred-branched
           zelkova tree

     and floats on the fish pond.

*

Far away, in some rainy meadow,
           Thalia is blooming.

             I dream its long-stalked basal leaves,
           its panicles of bracted
            purple flowers.

And somewhere a river flows,
           black as leopard-flower seeds,
           under the light of torches.

            In sleep
           I ride a long boat
           on its onyx waters.

 

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