I never figured myself to be a writer of poems, because I don't like poems. I don't like having form and structure in quite this way. It seems often to compel one to artifice and forced manipulations and, what is worse, hollow pomp. Too often shallow finery is taken for artistry, and so I generally view poetry with disdain. Another thing with me is that I don't actually like Shakespeare, the Bard. It's too rich for me, too dramatic. I think also that his plays generally treat grandiose themes without quite sifting out the deeper things, the subtler things. Goethe's Faust, on the other hand, I thought was magnificent. But so much by the by.
I wrote a poem for a girl not long ago. It surprised even me. It occurred to me one day to do it, as I suppose it occurs to young men to do romantic things of this sort. In my mind I wanted to give her something; I wanted her to be able to be just the sort of beautiful woman that men wrote love poems to. I gave it to her in a text message. The story ends there, as things must, sometimes. On my part, I am satisfied.
I have titled it, For the rain to return.
As the ground gently awaits the summer rain
So wait I in patient respite. Listening, feeling,
For you. For I know not when this rain will return.
I know not the clouds which bear you,
Nor the cerulean blue oceans from whence you came.
I know not the lands where you rest your head,
Nor the waters which feed you, and give you strength.
I know not your moist lips, nor the warmth of your breath,
Nor the softness of your hands. These I adore.
I know only that you are rain.
Thus I can say that the earth adores the sky, far above,
And searches, not anxiously, but as it must, unceasingly, still,
For the winds to turn.
I wait for the first of the cool, steady breezes which sweep an arc before your feet,
For the lightest of soft drops which sprinkle the earth between your toes,
For the pitter patter which follow the trace of your steps.
Once more I inhabit, I become the soil of this earth,
Where I am laid down I wait, patiently, for this joy,
I am at ease.
The rain relents, and the rain returns.
Thirsty, I drink from its flow, your touch, your caress.
Famished, I clutch the warmth of your fingers,
I breathe in the fragrance of rain in your hair.
I am awash with the gaze of your eyes, deep and dark,
Impenetrable as the swells of the ocean.
I am swept along, leaving my shores
I sink in the water’s embrace, in the depth of your body.
For I am the earth, and I have waited for this joy, for you – for rain.
