Listen to me, as rain is heard—
neither with full attention nor with distraction,
light traces, a fine drizzle,
water that is air itself and air that is time itself.
The day is still alive,
the night not yet born,
blurred shapes
at the bend behind the corner,
the shapes of time
in the curve of silence.
Hear me, as rain is heard,
without hearing me, yet leaning in to what I say,
with eyes open inward, in sleep,
with all five senses awake.
Rain is falling: light traces, a murmur of consonants,
air and water, words without weight:
that we are, and that things are,
the days and the years, this moment,
a weightless time, a pain that presses down.
Listen to me, as rain is heard:
the wet asphalt shines,
steam rises and drifts away,
the night unfolds and casts its gaze on me—
you are you, and your body of vapor,
you and your face of night,
you and your unruly thunder-hair.
You cross the street and enter my forehead,
traces of water before my eyes.
Hear me, as rain is heard:
the asphalt is wet and you cross the road,
in the fog, lost in the night,
in this night that sleeps in your bed.
It is the wave swelling in your breath,
your fingers of water moisten my brow,
your fingers of fire burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open the eyelids of time—
a waterfall of visions and resurrections.
Hear me, as rain is heard:
the years slip away, the moments arrive anew.
Do you hear the footsteps in the other room?
They are neither here, nor there; you hear them
from another time that happens now.
Listen to the footsteps of time,
creator of weightless, impossible places.
Hear the rain as it runs across the terrace.
The night is now dark, a graveyard night.
Lightnings sleep in nests among the leaves.
A restless garden wanders at the mercy of fate.
Your shadow covers this page of the book.
