The Sky Is Clear, But It's Raining
Under the trees, where everything
Is still possible in prescribed doses:
Hundreds of accordion-like units
Without edges. But there is no unwinding
Of minutes to stay the execution
Of a rain-shot weekend in early
Beach weather, no elixir
To revive the amputated flower
Still kicking on its ghost-stem
In a bowl of water, no direction
In which to steer
The hapless, puzzled out-of-towner
Other than straight ahead,
To the sheer drop-off
Where his guidebook gutters
Or deposits him, addressless,
In thin air.
Copyright Credit: Donald Britton, "The Sky is Clear, But It’s Raining" from In the Empire of the Air. Copyright © 2016 by Donald Britton. Reprinted by permission of Nightboat Books, www.nightboat.org.
Source: In the Empire of the Air (Nightboat Books, 2016)