Waterland

in praise of rain

In a couple days we’re going to take a trip to the edge of the solar system to get a little perspective on Earth’s living climate.

In the meantime, it’s a rainy Sunday here in Salish Sea country, and I’m reminded again of the magic of water.

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In land of mothering rain
our roofs become skins of drums.  
Edgeless days blur 
in a western ocean’s dreaming
as dark inland hills 
step in and out of the mist.

If you go walking there
you'll enter a conversation
in the language of water, unbroken
in its clarity. And though
the rain-freshened creek
and the dripping mosses
chime in your ears, the exchange is felt
as much as heard; a deep drinking in,
a common slaking and anointment.

There is no way to divine
the mind of it.  You just walk along
vaguely stunned, your amniotic breath
hanging as clouds behind you,
in their element—  
for you are in it too.  You also
drink of all beginning.