Nalyne Lunati © 2004 All Rights Reserved

This Kind of Weather

is not stormfall or hurricane
spinning past continents
to reach us, unexpectedly,
across an ocean or two.

is not summer spark that kindles
fire, a heat so dry
and intense that it wills you
to burn, dreaming of water.

is not slow frozen silence of
ice on steps beside a pond,
snow so cold it freezes
your lashes as you blink.

it’s rain, pouring, pouring
in between breaths of quiet,
the earth drinking it up,
refusing no surrenders,

even if accidental,
refusing no deaths, even if
they are too soon, no—
this kind of weather

knows these things
with patience and with mercy—
even if we have no calmness
left in us to see it.

 

Clea Allington
Copyright © 2004

 

Clea Allington’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in King County’s Poetry on Buses 2004 and In Our Own Words anthologies, Muse Apprentice Guild, Niederngasse, and others.

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