Retrospective

Today, I drove through different rooms of rain— kitchens of rain with their pots
and pans rattling, parlors of rain, galleries of rain with lidded roofs,
vaulted rooms with frescoed domes, with naves of cloud and oak-tree tapestries,
the quick rose window of insistent sun.
In one, briefly, the sky gave birth, then closed again. In some, something
or someone seemed to die, beyond the rise, the sugar cane, beyond where I could see,
a mystery. And some— familiar rooms— wept like broken, chambered hearts,
wept aloud as if they could not stop, or ever mend again.
In one, huge trucks went past like startled pachyderms,
and threw off rainbow strand of spray like floats at Mardi Gras.
In another, the fields were silent faces looking up— as if the sky revealed a saint,
or Mary had appeared, as if the sea of clouds might part, a Medjugorjian sun might twirl.
And one— a still life, a papered room, a blue vase on the polished tabletop; and yet
another softly lit like lovers’ rooms, like skin aglow with candlelight and love’s caress.
Sometimes, in the splash, I heard a whispered French: histoire, musique.
Prairie parishes and the diocese of clouds, where home,
tonight, I’ll sleep in other rooms of rain....