On a Day When Rain
for Elizabeth
On a day when rain surprised me,
pain did too.
You kept rising in our conversation,
and we welcomed you.
I could feel your breathing,
in my breath.
In my consciousness of living,
your death.
Two of us who loved you
spoke your name
and you came.
Surprising rain.
■
for Elizabeth
On a day when rain surprised me,
pain did too.
You kept rising in our conversation,
and we welcomed you.
I could feel your breathing,
in my breath.
In my consciousness of living,
your death.
Two of us who loved you
spoke your name
and you came.
Surprising rain.
■
Hello Friends,
Sometimes in poetry, the biggest emotions are held in beautiful tension with form, as in the quatrains and simple rhymes of today’s selection by Pat Schneider from her 2003 collection The Patience of Ordinary Things. The rhyme of “name” and “came” at the end of this poem comes as a surprise change in the rhyme scheme (the 2nd and 3rd line of the stanza rhyme instead of the 2nd and 4th) — the rhyme comes a line early, mimicking the surprise arrival of the memories of the lost loved one and of course the rain.
If you are moved by this poem, consider bringing back a loved one in a conversation today with someone who loved them too.
— Ællen
Sometimes in poetry, the biggest emotions are held in beautiful tension with form, as in the quatrains and simple rhymes of today’s selection by Pat Schneider from her 2003 collection The Patience of Ordinary Things. The rhyme of “name” and “came” at the end of this poem comes as a surprise change in the rhyme scheme (the 2nd and 3rd line of the stanza rhyme instead of the 2nd and 4th) — the rhyme comes a line early, mimicking the surprise arrival of the memories of the lost loved one and of course the rain.
If you are moved by this poem, consider bringing back a loved one in a conversation today with someone who loved them too.
— Ællen