Sestina for Rain

Summary

It comes in the night, like a mother, rain

stealing into our dreams, lulling us, hush

hush, a lullaby sung beyond the window,

curtains shut tight against streetlights

that now hiss and stutter, now flicker

yellow and out, yellow and out, a hand

passed over our eyes in a game. Take hands

in the street for the night dances, the rain

now a drummer drumming at our feet, hush

hush and together, the beat a window

to a collective dream. Lighter and light

we are turned and lifted – gold starts, flickers

against the earth's mirror. The dream flickers

and fails and morning steals the night, its hands

a lullaby on the sheets as the rain

flattens hayfields to a yellow hush

as hush go wind and rain at the window.

We'd almost forgive the rain if the light

were more forgiving and give up its lightfingered

steal on the morning. Night flickers,

yellow drifts of pollen on our hands

from a dream of hayfields. The street is rainrushed,

rain-rocked, rain-sung, a lullaby, hush,

hush as rain dances open a window

into the earth. We stand at our windows,

a dream collective wishing the light

would shatter the steel-fall of rain, flickers

of yellow birds, a pair of gold hands.

Instead, the street is curtained with rain, rain

fills the fields, the lanes, as the drains go hush

hush, a lullaby. The street is all hush

hush with rain, a dream song at our windows

where we sit, collectively, and watch light

dim and stutter, dip, falter and flicker,

matches struck in the cups of our hands

against the night, against the wind, the rain

an incessant hush, hush at the window

where light flickers yellow and out, yellow

and out, our hands cups, the mothers of rain.