Today's poem is by Margaret Gibson

Small Rain
       

Not quite awake, dozy in the way bees are
after fumbling the lilies,
and just loud enough for me to hear,
you say, "It's raining." And because
I used to love the sound of the rain
I drift back into remembering what,
hard of hearing, I can no longer hear,
wanting to start the day alive to rain
that shimmers in the window screens,
and streaks tree trunks lichen-green
then misty, as the morning
clears. Closing my eyes, I've listened
to rain on the roof for years,
as if my hearing it would always
continue, rain falling on stones,
on nests and nurse-logs; rain
slicking the coyote's fur and the silky
trillium, rain-stippled, nodding
on the shaded slope west of the house.
Beyond the window spatter now
I watch the cloudy borders of this quiet
storm, grateful for our life together
in the no-sound of the rain—
where it is nearly possible to believe
that we ourselves will continue,
and the Earth will, long after
it falls to one of us to close the other's eyes.

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Copyright © 2023 Margaret Gibson All rights reserved
from Connecticut River Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission