Side by side we scootch our bodies down,
huddle along the wall farthest from the porch's edge,
and face from our barely covered cave
the caterwauling coming down,
bare knees hugged and drawn to chins
in ear-filled awe and wide-eyed watching:
sky-shot water-sheets slapping tin roofs,
gushing down rain gutters,
making new rivers of gravel walks.

I wonder at the angry Sky-Man who makes all this,
of whom we sing, I think, in brave derision:

"It's raining, it's pouring,
the Old Man is snoring,
he jumped in bed and bumped his head,
and couldn't get up in the morning."

Is it in wrothy punctuation or promise of punishment
that he pronounces his opinion in hurled thunderclap
and with cussing concussion rattles our bodies,
quivers the linings of the void in our bellies?

Warned,
we sit in silent wonder
at a world alive.

February 22, 1989