Is rain a good house, sunshine a good car?
I have one home.
I went to the well to see
the king touch people
for the king’s evil.
The poor people stand
all morning in the rain,
the wind in the corn
changing all remembrance
into country.
Abroad on a cold business, I have a secret fire: a piece of gold.
Infinite, tedious rain.
A wind set my things
in better order, and I ached
for a serious purpose.
The rain coming
upon my bed, I went
and lay with the wind,
rocking till ten.
Things against my going:
the rain, a great deal of paper,
the wind in the marsh. Oy.
I chose the saddest color
for a melancholy mother
and had a fear I should see
my house full of swords.
O infinity of papers, give a piece of me
to the surgeon, to soldiers, to the town
where I seem a dull heavy man.
I had a mind to some cabbage,
I sent for some and had it.
A strange thing how I am
already in the book
of rain and night.
Rain.
I got up early.
I was deputy to trouble;
I could not talk.
A place other
than the void tonight?
I go out without
any qualification.
Doubt will be
the end of me.
I drink a draft of desire.
A gun gives widowhood
and the discourse of revenge:
to meet and dissolve, to issue hurt.
I was glad to hear a sermon
too eloquent for a pulpit—
the talking rain.
without prejudice to mine
who would the great leaders punish
fear is a game
poor people examined
as suspected persons
that they pitch upon to torture
our mother crow
in a strange hour
commanded to ask who we were
her face full
of black rain
like poison for a rook
a little rain
the bear passing through town
needs no advice
To think they were back there
all that time someone said
meaning the half-dozen snakes
of three different species
our bathroom remodeling project displaced
but my own thoughts kept dwelling
on that huge nest of razor blades
in the wall where the mirror had been
We propped up the roof and ripped
the bathroom walls out
keeping the fixtures intact
so that the shower stall
stood fully exposed
to the breeze and blowing rain
for half that summer
Ah
rain all afternoon
I put things
in my hat