A DAY OF RAIN

Once again, it has been a day of rain.
And I hear the flutter of light feet
on the warm earth, excited wings
loosening from the dark. There's
a summer hiding away behind the hills,
a haunting dream whose meaning
always escapes me,
like the sad shut tufts of mimosa,
hanging there tame and weeping
for the lost touch.
What thin air your face is now,
now that I touch it? Out here,
the stupid code of the crickets,
the wind's low whine; who knows
what's dying underneath
a growing blade of grass?
Or what habit palpitates
inside the dark pit of love:
art, ceremony or voice that lies
under my aimless hearing of the rain?

-- Jayanta Mahapatra

(From "The False Start" )