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Collected Poetry

    (rd king dot net)
poetry and digital art

In California

  Rural Melancholy 


Rain falling against the windshield
is a soothing thing.  The wipers
are like a heartbeat.  Each tick continues
and clarifies that easy drama
that lies, most clearly, ahead of me.
Things slip out of the big dark.  Things
confront me—black trees, little bridges,
cutbanks and berms, old possum staggers
in my headlights.  And the rain falls.
My melody passes through this place
quickly.  It sounds like rain spinning
off a tire.  I like the rain.  I like how
it brings on my melody.  With no words
and little effort it sends me home,
unharmed, to my wife.  The rain knows
its part.  But what of these lesser
melodies—the little trees, bridges,
cutbanks and berms, the red fox dancing
in the culvert—what are they like?
What thing sings for them?  What song?




 
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