The place we fall to alone

I can barely read more than two poems. There is too much
to process. Worlds of ideas in created unspoken spaces.
I cannot linger long enough, knowing
I could breathe in beauty, truth, the question
and have breath enough.


*Inspired by the experience of reading Anne Michael's poem "Rain Makes Its Own Night" three times on the 535, headed to work, and not being able to read anything else for the rest of the ride. And here it is:

Rain makes its own night, long mornings with the lamps left on.
Lean beach grass sticks to the floor near your shoes,
last summer's pollen rises from damp metal screens.

This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us,
clothes clinging to chairs, your shoes in a muddy grip.

The hard rain smells like it comes from the earth.
The human light in our windows, the orange stillness
of rooms seen from outside. The place we fall to alone,
falling to sleep. Surrounded by a forest's green assurance,
the iron gauze of sky and sea,
while night, the rain, pulls itself down through the trees.