The rain is pouring off our house in waterfalls,
tap-tap-tapping on the strange skylight
on the second floor of our rented rowhouse,
And I am remembering that night, in college,
Seventeen years ago now,
Seventy lifetimes ago, now,
When the rain came down so hard
that we could slide across the green on our stomachs,
and I ran, muddy, into the library,
and we shouted up at the sky.
The next day, finally dry, I scribbled in a journal,
with the pen my grandfather had given me
that was running out of ink:
“Last night I summoned a storm to heal my father,” I wrote.
I never had that kind of power,
but there was a truth there, somewhere,
I felt it in my bones.
The rain is coming sideways, now,
The woodwind and percussion sections, all at once,
and the dog is scared,
and I am praying again for the rain,
Somehow,
to heal my father,
And wondering if I should miss the frantic, manic, passion
of shouting at the storm,
or if,
that energy looks better in hindsight,
when at the time, I just desperately wanted
To feel home, somewhere, in the world.
