Raindream

When I wrote this in college, it was a prose-poetic short-short story. That's a lot of dashes. Anyway, I have no illusions that this is some brilliant piece of work, but I'm sharing it for fun. When I used to read it to classmates, it was always interesting to hear the different interpretations they would make about what mood was being communicated by this dream-image.

Dusk, a confusion of falling

water and leaves, full

moon rising, grown

children dancing in

puddles. Hundreds

of them, maybe

thousands, naked, unselfaware.

Brick buildings everywhere, all

dark windows. Cars

parked along streets; no

cars driving. Traffic

lights change color on

impotent schedule.

The whole world as if

deserted except for

the dancers in puddles, maybe

thousands, wet leaves

clinging like lichens

to faces, bodies, hair.

Streetside drains clogged

with leaves; gutters,

torrential rivers

widening, widening

meet in the middle. Street

lamps kick on. Everyone

still dancing, laughing

silently under the silent too

full moon.

The child-woman hears what

rain patter speaks. No

other sounds but

watery sounds, raining

and splashing

in puddles their feet.

Her hair stands

at angles little spikes

from her head. Mud spatters

up legs, mud between

toes, leaves stuck

to shoulders, breasts,

thighs. Maybe

rain falling fat, luscious

drops, maybe the

moon, but everything

has on-taken a cadet blue sheen.

She is dancing

in the street overloaded

gutter-torrents swirling

half way up to knees.

Looks to the sky

unblinking,

solemn,

dancing,

silently laughing too. Raises

her arms to shoulder

height, welcomes all

that falls from the sky:

an expansive gesture.

All around her: dancing,

blue-gray

unclothed,

unself-conscious,

silent in puddles of mingled

street lights and moon.

Leaves float

gutter rivers, sink

in puddles,

leaves, leaves,

falling thick as rain, coming

from trees and from

nowhere, different

as children, no two

the same. Somehow,

the leaves blue-gray

yet brown all

the same, sticking

to bodies, clinging

with desperation

of love.

She falls backwards slow

motion, spread-eagle-reckless.

A trust fall and water

catches her softly, spreads

in stop motion out

from her body a momentary hole.

Ripples spreading undisrupted

by the flow of the street-river, only

by raindrops with ripples

of their own. She opens

her mouth to swallow the sky.

A Sycamore leaf the size

of her head comes to breast,

out of nowhere. She

picks it up, holds it

to her ear, but

hears nothing, still

just the interference

of footfalls and rain.

So she holds it

out from her prone

body, leaf, big as her head.

She cries, Look!

This is my heart!

Here is my heart!

All around her

dancing. Hundreds,

maybe thousands,

dancing, naked

in puddles and

blue-gray moon.

She rises, dancing with

them, still calling.

All laughing,

silently laughing

with the moon

to the rhythm of

rainfalls and

footdrops.

Here is my heart!

My heart! No one

hearing, all

still dancing

in puddles

as water-laden

hearts fall

all around

them and

    sink

                            or float

away.