Five-Minute Poetry -- The Rain I Didn't Know (plus a bonus poem)
The Rain I Didn't Know
In the vast desert
the conscious and unconscious reaches
of my mind, I walked alone.
In a plain ringed about by mountains
so distant, without color.
First I saw feathers
just feathers, no color
like a fan filling my vision;
I heard the ankle beads clack
and dust sifting around footfalls.
Then a torrential rainbow
though I didn't even know the word
until she stood there smiling
her gap-toothed grin
pinned by two dimples, blue
eyes like a million lights.
She is the rain
I didn't know
and still haven't known
though my desert now
blooms.
"The Rain I Didn't Know" was written today, for the Freewriters prompt 'reach'.
I have often seen my soul (for lack of a better word) as a Native American man wandering in the desert, and I've explored this motif in other poems.
Below, because of this common thread, I offer "He Danced," a poem written in October 2021.
And if you'd like to read more about Katherine, my real life passion and love, the inspiration of "The Rain I Didn't Know," check out Listen to Your Heart, a nonfiction five-minute freewrite.
He Danced
He danced
and his barefeet
raised dust into dryness.
His feathers rasped.
His rattle hissed.
And the air gathered itself to constrict into cloud, but not rain.
He danced
and his feet ached
and on the rocklike plain his people ached.
The corn withered.
Lean winter months feared.
He danced,
and the dance did not bring rain.
His belief in the dance brought rain.