the rain does not fall
for teachers to explain the water cycle
nor for the dogs to hide under a sheet
nor for the poets to speak of his poor and strange soul
the rain, I infer, has no home or exodus
no memory, no language, no moral or aesthetic sense,
the rain does not fall by mercy or by mandate
neither by customary physics nor by rage nor by zeal,
I do not have encyclopedias of lightning or thunder at hand
I have no basis to explain it,
but I sense, I suspect, that it falls for all
And every reason I've denied
like love and its covens,
where we all sing and dance for no apparent reason
with no other essence than that of falling and falling again
for the inexplicable idiosyncrasy of breaking us
gladly
drop by drop
the skeleton.