this is a sestina I wrote about 11 years ago |
The simplest thing in life is rain. So simple yet so fabulous, From untamed skies watch it fall To bring life forth from barren ground. It wets parched Earth's lips, A thirst quenched drop by drop. I see nothing on my rapid drop. My life is short, the life of rain, A descent to nature's waiting lips. Too simple to be fabulous. Then I shatter on the ground At the end of my fall. O, rain of spring, summer, and fall, A life is held in each drop. Upon the reaching of the ground One hears the spatter of the rain. A noble life so fabulous To wet the words of speaking lips. The words issued from those lips May curse the fact that I must fall. How, I ask, is this fabulous? I am only but a single drop. I am not the whole of rain. I do not show upon the ground. To greet the womb of plants, the ground, It heals the wound 'pon its dry lips. It gives the greens a living force, the rain. In haste to do this in its fall To the earthen floor it makes a drop. A purpose made to be fabulous. I can find no aspect fabulous In dying on the cold, hard ground. No wound is healed in my drop. I briefly bemuse what comes from others' lips. I meet my end when there's no room left to fall. C'est la vie du pleut. It is fabulous work done to feed all lips. No. From air to ground I simply fall. Then fell the drop with the rain. |