Rain makes its own night, long mornings with the lamp left on.
Lean bean grass sticks to the floor near your shoes,
last summer’s pollen rises from damp metal screens.
This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us,
clothes clinging to chairs, your shoes in a muddy grip.
The hard rain smells like it comes from the earth.
the human light in our windows, the orange stillness
of rooms seen from outside. The place we fall to alone,
falling to sleep. Surrounded by a forest’s green assurance,
the iron gauze of sky and sea,
while night, the rain, pulls itself down through the trees.
~ from The Weight of Oranges (Coach House Press, 1985)
