The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Before the rain, I couldn't imagine the rain.  
It is that way with me. Yesterday

I filled with brilliant sunlight, with air faintly green,

reflecting the everything that rises in spring. 

Yesterday was dry and so forever
is dry.  Around here, the Kings River runs clean as it can.  

Eagles rise against the bluffs, a canoe snakes,

loops, slides sweet up to Clifty.  In this weather,

I am a forecast atheist. 

Torrents come as a surprise, boil the creek with runoff,
pulse the flannel hillside light with crows, riding the breeze

like oil on water.  I float in vitreous air,

contained by ignorance and caws.  Warnings are nothing

to me.  A momentary drought, the creek
clear again, how can I believe the glass will ever break?