Rain Poem

It rained in Pune a couple of thursdays ago, and then the next day dissapointingly didn't.
I did however get a hundred liner out...



Rain Poem


Good news, my darling,
It rained today,
I announce loudly, tumbling
Droplets onto a white-tiled floor.

I've been walking, wading
Through so many fresh rivulets.
It took the rain an hour,
To wash off so many months of sweat.

My lungs were breathing cool air
All along the way here. I've been
Hearing a rolling tumbling music
And been bathed in drunken laughter.

Peeling out of my wet clothes I say
I met a man you'd like
He stoutly carried a big black umbrella -
A lonely soldier with a sullen standard.

Tone deaf to the rain, I say. Amused,
She watched me undress and says
With all that music, you could've
Given me a more graceful striptease.


As I shower, she talks to me
Through a closed door, her words
Dripping onto the floor and pulling out
Strange patterns from water and street dirt.

The lights were out while you were gone,
She says. It nearly drowned me,
Drew me up in a soft warm black bag,
Left me screaming in a dark black ink.

I could hear the rain all around me
And the darkness all through the city.
I could see you walking in the darkness,
And stumbling and falling and not getting up.

I stood over you and watched you die,
Drowned you in my own salt tears.
You saw my face framed in lightning,
And thought I was life and death and wisdom.

And then the lights came on, I say,
Opening the door a little. No, she says,
Handing me the forgotten towel,
I just learned how to see in the dark.


She's cold when I hold her,
And her lips speak to me
Of the storm in waiting,
Of the tempest sleeping in skin.

Lightning carves up the sky,
And then rejoins it in a new pattern.
It says her name and mine again and again,
In a hundred whispered voices.

We lie in the heart of the storm,
Skin wrapped in skin.
We drink it in, drowning
In a mingled breath.

And then there is silence wrapped
In the drumming rhythm of rainwater.
She whispers to me that
The lights have gone off again.

I tell her I switched them off
Before we started. And then,
There is only the silence
Wrapped in rain soaked skin.


Her ears are sharper than mine.
The light catches the ear-ring
On a soft lobe, as it turns
To notice the dull sounds of a leaking window.

There's a soft pool at the side of our bed.
In this darkness, I cannot tell
If it it warm blood or clear crystal,
As it is shattered by a new droplet.

And we talk, in her voice and mine,
In the mingled voices of the rain,
And the pool grows larger, its surface
Pulsing between dream and nightmare.

She draws apart long enough
To gather sheets around us.
She hears the hollow beast sounds of the wind
And wraps us in a cloak of warmness.

And we drown together in sleep,
Which is a final drowning.
Drawn apart at last,
As rainwater slips between skin and skin.


The morning cheerily awakens me,
With fists of careless brightness,
Determined to massage a healthy glow
Onto poor rain soaked skin.

The day, rid of the rain,
Wraps itself in the ritual
Of habit. By evening a neat
Erasure of yesterday's events is achieved.

I sit on a large soft arm-chair,
Drinking a comfortable cup of tea,
Trying to discern in the sunlight
Shapes of burnt up dreams and nightmares.

She sings while she puts on
A second cup. Bright spirits
On a bright day, with neither
Space nor time for senseless dreaming.

But there's hope yet. She curses
The dangerous storm soaked days
And praises bright ones, but still
Has left that window carefully unfixed.