Rainy Day in Chicago

Today brings to mind another rainy day, a few years ago:

Rainy Day

All morning the wind

shudders the windows, pushes

a curtain of water against

the glass.  Outside

each creature cowers

in its shelter.  Inside I

listen to the furious

lake and the death-cries

of the wind while words

advance

    one by one

          across the lined pages of

my notebook, its blue covers

thick and velvet-soft.  There is

something desirable

about rain and

the solitude it brings.   The possibility

of hours of un-

interrupted reading; an entire day

devoted to shaping a poem, carving each word

out of the void or simply plucking one

out of the hundreds lined-up at attention

like good little tin soldiers in my brain.

Later,

the sky

spent of its passion, serene

after thunder, I walk

into town, a book under my arm,

wet grasses brushing

against my bare legs, crisp air

and vivid blue sky

welcoming

all the creatures out

again -- 

a red-headed woodpecker

who dives noisily against

the dead high limbs

of a sycamore tree,

its curling bark exposing

the whitish-brown trunk;

a cedar waxwing, his cinnamon

crest darting

  in and out

            of a drenched thicket

of red mulberry leaves, quick

bursts to snack on flying

insects.  I

prefer a cup of coffee, a slice

of peach tart at the Pumpernickel Inn.