May 25, 2020
The Song of May
A poem about May in my country.
May kicks the door open
and the rain comes marching in with a thousand feet.
Suddenly whole towns are covered in her wake.
Clouds grow heavy—
hanging low, stretching their bodies into the horizon
and the landscape drinks, saying goodbye
to the uninterrupted heat of Sun,
yielding,
itself to May’s rushing embrace.
Rivers swell and roll like happy children romping,
their wet underbellies brown with clay.
It is true, that the trees of the hinterlands worship
in her cathedrals of diffused light—singing,
oh, how hauntingly they sing her secret monsoon song
to veiled gray mornings.
At night she rests her head on my shoulders,
her hair comes away dripping, stained by the sweet water
of her black pools,
and in her voice of trickling water, as it
slips from one broad leaf to the next, she says to me,
“Do you know the sound of tired rain?”
I listen for its pattern.
Tap, tap, tap.
On my roof, a music hour
And the crapauds, hidden
in their sticky holds know the tune.
The solitude of night falls away and
sleep comes to me softly, and May,
with her glistening heels, dances to the sound
of happy frog songs.
She is a timid maiden who walks with wet
footsteps, unsleeping,
or, sometimes a terrible hungry flood—
bursting over the coast,
her dazzling face—a drop of water
catching light on a lily-pad — the source of
immortal gentleness
or cruelty.
Hello everyone! Thanks so so much for reading! Here’s some more of my poetry!
