Same Rain
The radar shows
a storm system stretching
from Oklahoma
to New York.
A squall line across half the country.
The meteorologist points
to colors.
Pressure gradients.
Bands of precipitation.
As though naming a thing
makes it solid.
The rain falling outside my window
this evening
is from the same system
falling on you.
The same composition
working through different coordinates.
I like that weather refuses
our borders.
State lines.
Time zones.
Clouds do not care.
A storm crosses Kentucky
without noticing
Kentucky.
Before wires and telephones
messages crossed states
on horseback through rain.
A sentence taking days
to find
the person
it belonged to.
Tonight I imagine the wind lifting
the leaves to you.
You looking up
from whatever you are doing.
Maybe reaching
for the bill of your cap.
The universe
understands connection.
Gravity.
Migration.
Watersheds.
Everything leaning
toward everything else.
Even longing
behaves this way.
Sometimes I think
relationships are less like bridges
and more like weather.
Not something built.
Something entered.
A pattern large enough
to contain two people
standing far apart
beneath the same rain.
The water in our bodies
has been here
for billions of years.
Passed through oceans.
Glaciers.
Storm drains.
Tea kettles.
Tonight
somewhere beyond the horizon
water is falling through darkness
onto both of us.
7 thoughts on "Same Rain"
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Love this weather poem!
Thank you, Diana!
I love “A sentence taking days / to find / the person/ it belonged to” and, well, all this poem!
Thank you, Sue!
Somewhat ironically, I don’t think it’s rained a drop in Lexington today.
But the sentiment of the poem remains. Weather’s ignorance of state lines. Relationship’s less like bridges, more like entering weather. Also a great sequence in ‘Glaciers./Storm drains./Tea kettles.’ Global to cities to home. Very nice work, as always.
Thank you, Philip!
Yes, it didn’t rain in New York either! 😂
I was thinking about the rain scheduled to come through on Thursday before my softball game and then I got rolling with this poem. I liked the vehicle of water connecting everyone across geography and time! 😉
It’s a good vehicle. I’ve thought about that theme of connection, too, with my poetry has been going to cosmos like it has. The ‘same stars in the sky’ kind of thing.
Guess I should also give a nod to the universe popping up in this poem, then. 😉