Rainfall

With acknowledgments to “Rain” by Cynthia Barnett Whether the rain on Mars was delicate or brutal whether it was blue or gray whether it fell on bare rocks that remained bare or on fertile ground that raised large forests of leafing trees it could not last. Mars froze eventually in the same duration that Venus by contrast bowed her burning head in noxious vapors and gas clouds. • On planet Earth meanwhile after half a billion years of continuous volcano-havoc meteor storms earthquakes               and lightning strikes vapor stored in the atmosphere eventually began falling. It soothed the fires. When the fires died it fell silently on the first outcrops of moss. On the tender grass with a sizzle. With more strenuous drumming on the resilient fronds of ferns. It became an orchestra of millions across the luxurious expanse of the tree canopy. • Then the sun wiped its forehead with long filmy fingers and beamed afresh. It worked through to creatures flourishing beneath the canopy and persuaded them to interrupt their work of scouring on all fours for delectable roots and berries. In the clarified light they stared at their hands. They saw the wrinkled fingertips that gave them a firm grip on slippery branches and vines gradually smooth      and soften. They rose in amazement onto their hind legs and crept from shelter across the dazzling savannah. • After a summer of twelve thousand years after the interruptions of ice after one particular inundation and the shadow of an ark darkening fish-shoals as they scooted over hills and valleys after the blaze of one civilization then another after the destruction of several experiments with law and order after the extinction of many beautiful languages rain by and large found its place in the scheme of things. It began to defeat its purpose on the private sky of umbrellas. It babbled through long green fields and melted into the seams of poetry. It larked in the puddle of its many names. Cobblers and chair legs and pipe stems. Frogs and jugs and beards. Cats and dogs. Men. • Although they are shaped like a parachute thanks to the air pressure beneath them raindrops                     explode on landing. Then the sun bears down again fitting his monocle into his eye. The glass flashes and burns. The rain sweats and evaporates into the ocean of its air. The ocean continues on its way continually overflowing here and there in quick little splashes or reckless floods and drenching. It is delicate or brutal. It is blue sometimes              and sometimes gray. Sometimes it falls on bare rocks at others                     it raises large forests of leafing trees.