RAIN DANCES

RAIN DANCES

Rain. And in the woods, a continual downward flight of leaves, meandering from side to side like all lost things. The rain falls harder.---From The Morning Porch by Dave Bonta, 10-14-11

Lluvia! Lluvia! It was a chant
sung at the top of our voices,
croaking like frogs hopping
from the rice paddies. Rain! Rain! 

Naked, our hallooing was no match
for our scrawny bodies carousing,
running through the monsoon
downpour like scampering chicken. 

The rain at the edge of the woods
is not the same rain where we got
lost like cascading lilies rushing
through boulders at the field’s edge. 

Rain rips foliages off their branches
like surly gardeners cutting off twigs
from blackened trees and bushes
to prepare for a long, dreary winter. 

Lost in autumn’s mayhem, yellow
leaves reel in a wild wind dance
pitching them off to unseen crannies
to rot in the rain like all things must. 

But it is not this dying we rue. Lost,
gone in the fall of discarded days,
we scarcely remember rain dances
where we were naked, free, and happy. 

— Albert B. Casuga
10-14-11