So much rain has come down
Seems that everything has melted
And become a liquid.
The sound of the downpour
Has been embedded in my ear,
Like the muted downbeat of breakers
In the curling innards of the seashell,
From so many years sitting empty
On the ocean floor, being nudged along by currents,
Then bobbing ashore with dead fish
And purple blobs of Man-o’-wars,
Caught in tangled nets,
And finally thrown deep into dunes
By a rogue wave or tsunami,
Where it waits for tides to return
And take it home to the sea.
And all the while it hears that drumming surf
Echoing down its spiral staircase,
And it whispers back the sacred chant of waves.
So this rain remains in me
As the underlying wisdom I have learned
And becomes — like my breath,
like my heart beat —
the rhythm of my poems.
