Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

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Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy

to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!

That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished

like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.

Then it was over.

The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.

The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.


—Mary Oliver

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datura
vivre !
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