how i love the rain

If I could talk to the rain

I think she would tell me 

how she loved my skin.

libations she’d poured

unto my kinfolk,

her reflection alight on us

as an ambient glow.

I think that she’d tell me

how she loved when

I went out to dance

to her softly sung soliloquy, 

and tell each other stories

about times I had loved her

and how she had loved me.


I would tell her about my favorite tea.

The one I’d sip, religiously, 

soon as she’d come to greet me,

when her pattering would grace my window. 

How I would let it steep, 

wait patiently,

allow the blues and greens

resident in her sound,

the orange awash with amber,

resting on the mellow bronze pool, 

I’d drink whilst conversing.


Telling her how I loved the winter,

when she’d step slowly,

so delicately down. 

Insulating the world around us,

our conversations a whisper,

to preserve the silence her presence

had cast before us

in blankets of frigid white. 


I’d reminisce the spring

when she’d stay for days and days.

Her being, 

my perfect excuse,

to sit still and speak,

without ever using my voice,

because she knew

how I’d loved the blooming flowers

and reviving trees,

soon coming, 

from the waters she’d leave.


I’d tell her how I loved her in summer

cooling me with her touch

as though I’d earned the same grace

she’d bestowed upon the earth,

blessed, beneath me. 


How I would tell her I’d loved

the times I’d hummed along

to the the song she’d play,

as she danced beside my window.

How I quietly admired

as I watched her cascade,

her poetry poking holes

into unknown parts

of my ever unfolding soul.

How she washed over, 

in and between,

my timid spirit.

our communion begging my solace flow.

How her peace passed gently,

descending from crown to sole,

her peace made mine, 

if only for a time,

asking only that I pour

as she pours unto me.


How I loved the letters written

on the parchment of my heart.

How her voice carried tones

of love that fills and fills completely,

of sorrow that is held and exhaled gratefully,

of an embrace that unfurls you, and returns you whole,

and a longing that is never unfulfilled.


If I could talk to the rain

I’d tell her all the ways

I loved her, 

and loved the ways

she had loved me.

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triptych of a black woman surviving