rain

​they say of rain I was 
made, of a heart filled
like a cistern, down the street
how I dragged my long hair 
and sang among storms
and flattened gardens. 
they shivered when lightning
split the nut of the sky
and I danced; they shivered
and shook while I cut myself
full of windows and drank.
but the plants took their fill 
and all the throats of the earth 
opened up, witnesses 
for me and me alone if you will
umbrella-breaker, reading
these lines and drowning,
in love, or out
as does the soul, made 
of water, and as water the soul
transubstantiated returning 
as love or out as water, or else why
do we believe the dead rise
and join the clouds? why
do we weep for those lost
which are also moving like water
which are also carrying their 
slow buckets across the jet stream 
and returning from the other side
of the earth, where it was
dark, where the dark spoke
to them in secret language
and hollowed them
with capacity everlasting,
and filled it with clean rain?
​