the storm

First

there are just

a few drops

quietly

like voices that have forgotten their purpose

they flop – cautiously,

pensively

they bite thier lips – what is it that we cant remember that we might have forgotten?

ker-plop go the thoughts like bubbles at a parade

floating above the flowers and candy

offering a different kind of sweetness

splash go the drops, slapping pavement
and grass alike with their rejuvenated,

resurrected

curiosity

Why is the world-
they ask shrubs and rooftops

who is this watery being-
they ask oceans and sidewalks

ker-plippity-plop
they start to gain momentum and they ask each other

why not me?

they ask the graying sky and its inhabitants -
from where does your morality come?
Whom does your morality serve?
Why does your morality exist?

They climax

and it is maybe too soon

and the drops patter

off into a whisper

of mist hanging around

and none can tell

if

they’re maybe gone

or

were ever here

at

all

And a shout like the heart of a god breaking tears open the sky again

and the drops fall faster and larger
asking – why is living wrong?
asking – why is charity just?

asking – what kindness is there in giving what I have earned?

ker ploppitty plop say the drops to forests and ponchos

to star gazers and priests and night shift gas station attendants

ker plottpitty plop plop

they ask the summits of mountains and the homeless people huddled under bus stops

why am i not to love my life-

why am i to be secretly ashamed of successes,

why am i to scrape a living off scraps from God’s table?

why can I not shape the world myself-

they demand the salty sacred air that rushes to great them on their perilous plippity plip plopping.

Give me where to stand, they bellow as one mighty clap of the hooves of beasts of burden no longer, and I will move the earth they crash into millions of lifetimes and furrowed brows and light up the darkening sky again and again while the plastic people gaze out their windows, awed by the power, but afraid of the wetness
stirred by the sacrifice of these unwilling accomplices
stayed by the shelter they themselves had cast

and from deluge, to patter, to drippity drop ker ploppity plop they fall

slower and softer,

like the whispered laments at the funeral of a dictator

like a wave from a loved one you may or may not see again,

ker plop say the steady, unstateable power

sleeping in a million muscles waiting to be stretched

plip plop
and the clouds are passing,

so think the kings and cowards

living on the strength of others

plop – laughs the drops

there will be no rainbow.

~ by zimmermusic on July 4, 2008.