a product of rain smells

soak me, wet me through, fill my bones
with a rain that plays morse code
promises of life
wetting wood smelling like rotting tool sheds and
pearl-beaded grasses of vermont
clinging clothed children with mud
for shoes tapping their mouths with
their hands to make politically incorrect
indian calls under silver strings
threaded through shining trees
dripping, plunking, slapping
the air is clean mud
immitating the changing rooms of
connecticut's cream hill lake
where ghosts of my mother's sisters and
cousins snapped straps of bathing suits that
never had time to dry and whispers
that never give way to silence years
later when wet wood carvings of ancient
dates, love declared boldly in swiss
army graffiti the water can't wash
away
and today
heating tea sighs steam that meets the
moisturized african air and feigns disappearance
as black feet shuffle to boombox beats
every color of loudly mismatched cloth
silenced by the volume of laughter
echoing in a world hollowed out by
the weight of long-awaited rain
attaaya leaves couple with beads of sugar
and cling to the wet wood scent of
water from the sky
just another rainy day
that tells me I've lived a thousand
lives and my blessed bones only
make room for more.