RAIN: MY MOTHER’S LAST DAY
San Antonio, Texas, June 27th, 1981
Nobody sees the rain being born:
from clouds out of the North Pacific
it scrapes off the Cascade Mountains
into the black soil of the Willámette Valley;
what you always called, no praise intended,
the dear Oregon rain.
Chopin’s raindrop prelude:
each note on the spattered page
is a raindrop,
every drop is counted.
In the drip chamber
the drops are counted, dopamine, nitroprusside,
the light bottle against the dark bottle:
your heart counts no longer.
Outside your window your last rain falls,
blows over Mustang Island into the Gulf.
The rain falls in the sea,
nobody sees the rain fall.