Rain Inside

Description

We grew up in his palms, and we saw the earth’s goodness in his arms, a vast expanse. We sang, and he laughed – “Oh, you wretched ones, grow up!” Ah… Was there a song or a sky in his heart for him to laugh at? Did war have a moon in his face for him to sing? We grew up in his palms, and we witnessed him far away, arranging his days in the mountains, planting them in a vessel of war. How often did the desert cross him, a bullet or a shell, and linger? Oh, wheat, sometimes, sometimes, besieging us between his sides – “Oh, you wretched ones, grow up!” Between his dreams and our hands was a time of death and planes, a land of silence and explosions. We ran, we ran. We tried one day with love, when he was distracted – secretly – so that we would remain young. He hid his smile from the eyes of our mischief, and gave us the sun and songs, day after day. Clouds of grass and shade, two years, fifty years, and we, in his palms, embrace him in crisis, at weddings, in posters, searching for the warmth of his beard, for prairie horses, tales of battle, and we deceive him so we may remain young, deceive him so we may remain young.