Rain for Days

And the sky closed, but now the TV weather
radar screen shows the few last showers,
here and there pale green, red at the core

with downpour. Suddenly the screen
is awash in deep green, what appears
a deluge, a flood. Pay no attention—

it's just the migrating birds! Just the birds?
How many must there be, streaming out
of the north on their urgent, necessary way,

revealed by an instant pulse of energy
sent out where our eyes cannot go—as if
a cleft appeared, opening the sky,

or a life, to reveal a secret migration
where what we choose to attend tells
nothing at all about what's really there.

Despite the weatherman's best efforts,
birds keep flooding the screen,
confounding all the old, dependable

formulas and devices. There is something
insistent, almost furtive about it. The way
the inner life wells up and cannout be quieted.

The way love comes down like a hammer.

Copyright © 2005 Diane Holland All rights reserved
from Crab Orchard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission