Poetry – THE GIFT OF RAIN by Virginia S. Eifert, 1963
October 21, 2015THE GIFT OF RAIN by Virginia S. Eifert, 1963
What better gift
Can I wish for you
Than summer rain?
The all-night rain,
The day-long rain,
The voice of gutters running,
The sliding drops on elm and fern
That long,
Slow, sweet, living rain,
Soaking into parched
And punished earth
An earth denied the gift
Till now,
This gift of rain withheld
Beneath a realm of heat,
Of furnace winds,
Of heat-waves shimmering
Over grain.
The desperate rolling
Of the leaves of corn.
The lessening brooks,
Those stones lie
Scabbed and dry.
The ebbing pond-shore,
Marked with muskrat tracks,
The green stagnation
Of the algae scum
Clogging the once-clear
Sparkling water.
The robins, beaks a-gape,
Seek vainly after worms
Deep-hid in rock-hard ground.
Dust lies on leaves.
Grass burns.
The daisies dim.
And earth cries out for rain.
And then it comes I
The darkening clouds,
The sudden wind,
The wash of chill, clean air
Like surf,
Sweeping away the heat I
The lightning’s blue-white
Declaration.
The thunder’s rumbling confirmation ………………………………………………………………….
The rain
The first drops raise perfume
From newly wetted dust and’ stone.
The ferns bend
The elm leaves, blowing,
Sweep showers in the rain-wind-,
Gusting.
The robins shout their glorias,
The swifts, oblivious of drops,
Speed fast and gay,
Chattering delight,
Gutting the rain
As with dark scimitars of wings.
And the earth
And leaves are clean,
Streams filled,
Ponds brimmed,
Grass greened,
And birds rejoiced,
Jabbing the worms
Brought up by rain.
The catbird sang.
A lank-tailed squirrel
Came out to see the day.
Still dripping, still a-brim,
The land lay calm, Relaxed and cool, Breathing beatitudes for this,
The gift of rain.
July, 1963 for Herman’s birthday
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