The Smell of Rain

The Smell of Rain

I followed every move of her leave-taking –
one hand in mine, the other in my sister’s,
she let me pace her going with the rhythm
I stroked her with.  Or else I learned the rhythm
from every breath which hovered by her mouth
waiting to see if she would sip it in.

Instead it seemed as though, tilting her chin,
she tried to hold her soul from slipping out
ahead of time, before it slid forever through her lips…

She let it speak.  Her eyes in mine were neither
dull nor bright.  Filled with strange longing
they looked at me directly, yearning to leave
yet sorry that we must be left behind.
As full of promise as a drop of the first rain
after summer, love floated in her eyes –
amazed to see how dry the earth had got.

I forgot where it was that she was going, she
forgot the fear she’d had of getting there.  Gently
the rain began to fall.  And by the time it poured,
she’d left. 

I, being still human trembled at its force
and didn’t know exactly why my face was wet
although I smelt the stone drinking and breathing,
remembering how she’d stop just to inhale.

I think about those minutes, those last minutes
as the beginning of something I don’t quite understand -
my mother left one evening when her eyes, awash
with love, her small chin tilting, told me that going
was not the end, and breathed life into me again.
I closed her lids when she was gone to keep that drop
from drying – she lets it hover simple as the rain.

© Copyright 2006 Maria Grech Ganado

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