Getting Drenched
It has surprised me on those rare days,
that singular pour of color
when dusk-filled sky settles over the lake
and I am walking, looking up.
I notice the aching pink, the purple sag,
the warm orange edge of cloud
draped heavily over mirroring water.
As if the sky is so full that it might overflow.
I stop then, begin to sip it, drop
after drop of color as if it was liquid.
I open my lips, tip up
my head, lick at it with my tongue.
I let it overflow my mouth,
run down my chin, drip onto
my shirt. I stretch out my arms
and let it pour on me
as if the liquified twilit sky
was a storm. Rain down on me,
I beg, because I am parched,
yearning, walking in the midst of a drought.
Drinking the sky. Drinking, really,
the love the sky holds, a promise
I want to trust. Not knowing until now
how thirsty I have been.
I thirst for what I can't touch in this world,
what is formed in some purer realm. Stream
it down, Rainmaker, Sun Sower, Sky Lord,
let me be soaked in this goodness.
I walk home then, slowly, the long way,
my shoes squishing, my hair dripping,
and wring out the light
from my holy, drenched clothes.
