Today’s rain has been falling in such great torrents,
(was it yesterday, too?),

it feels like summer’s sheets of unbridled wet season

or Florida summer, when my curly hair wants to curl like a vine

inside inside & up

so it can sit near my ear

& hear all that rain.

 

What of the cherry blossoms?

Are they curling curling then falling down?

What will be left when the rain’s sheets have fallen

off the line & the sky returns blue?

 

Will be be so barred in by all of our mounting garbage

& laundry desperately damp needing

to be dried or hung

outside

that we cannot rejoin the parks, garden,
say earth in a picnic

or jog around with our little ones

for fear their boots are not tall enough?

 

This rain is chasing my flowers

and pinning them down

their fives pedals

down their pink

into muck and streams running gutters

in a street

in a city

called tokyo

where

grace and humble

boughs

are indeed

a strength.

 

We wait all year for the rain to dash our hope?

No. We wait for the sun & look on with trust

that we’ve caught the perfect picture already, caught it, trapped it

in a pressed flower book

where dreams and memories

do not only stay but

grow.

 

Rain, my darling, is for making things grow

& for opening up what is nearly ready.

We hang on & wait for the sun.