By Phillis Levin
For this you may see no need,
You may think my aim
Dead set on something
Devoid of conceivable value:
An Anthology of Rain,
A collection of voices
Telling someone somewhere
What it means to follow a drop
Traveling to its final place of rest.
But do consider this request
If you have pressed your nose
Of any shape against a window,
Odor of metal faint, persistent,
While a storm cast its cloak
Over the shoulder of every cloud
In sight. You are free to say
Whatever crosses your mind
When you look at the face of time
In the passing of one drop
Gathering speed, one drop
Chasing another, racing to reach
A fork in the path, lingering
Before making a detour to join
Another, fattening on the way
Until entering a rivulet
Running to the sill.
So please accept this invitation:
You are welcome to submit,
There is no limit to its limit,
Even the instructions are a breeze
As long as you include
Nothing about yourself
Except your name. Your address
Remains unnecessary, for the rain
Will find you — if you receive it
It receives you (whether or not
You contribute, a volume
Is sent). And when you lift
The collection you may hear,
By opening anywhere, a drop
And its story reappear
As air turns to water, water to air.
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Cloud Fishing
To fish from a cloud in the sky
You must find a comfortable spot,
Spend a day looking down
Patiently, clear-sighted.
Peer at your ceiling:
Where a light dangles, hook & line
Could be slipping through.
Under the hull of a boat
A fish will see things this...
Lenten Song
That the dead are real to us
Cannot be denied,
That the living are more real
When they are dead
Terrifies, that the dead can rise
As the living do is possible
Is possible to surmise,
But all the stars cannot come near
All we meet...
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The Racist Bone
I know this is a real thing, because
When I was a kid, my big sister took me
To the Capitol Theater, in my hometown
Of Rochester, NY,
And there was a movie that afternoon,
The Tingler, which starred Vincent Price,
And what I remember best...
The Last Word
I am a door of metaphor
waiting to be opened.
You’ll find no lock, no key.
All are free to enter, at will.
Simply step over the threshold.
Remember to dress for travel, though.
Visitors have been known
to get carried away.Illustration by Shadra Strickland
More Poems about Living
if time is queer/and memory is trans/and my hands hurt in the cold/then
there are ways to hold pain like night follows day
not knowing how tomorrow went down.
it hurts like never when the always is now,
the now that time won't allow.
there is no manner of tomorrow, nor shape of today
only like always having...
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
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More Poems about Nature
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
A Wing and a Prayer
We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud?...