Making sense(s) of rain

• Some people can smell

Rain coming

Not you, nor I

But when you said

I can hear colors in the rain

I didn’t ask

What colors?

Only thought

What a delightful turn of phrase

Enviously accepting

The strictures

Of my lesser imagination

 

Should I wonder

How the sun might smell –
Like fire, or ash?

Or how the moon would feel

If I licked at it –

Like it looks,

Chalky, gritty

Forcing me outdoors

Open-mouthed

Asking the colors of the rain

To wash the texture of the moon

Off my tongue?

 

When I asked

Where did that come from?

Your response surprised me

Literal as could be:

I meant the military Morning Colors –

The Star-Spangled Banner

Played at flag raising

8 in the morning every day

On Pearl Harbor

The rain had smuggled it

Across the water

To where you live

 

My mother always said

Line-drying is best

The clothes smell like sunshine

I couldn’t smell it

But took her word for it

If I could smell the rain, though

I might have been spared

Those many sprints into a downpour

Muddy water slickening my slippers

Splashing up my legs

Arms heavy with soggy linens

That I didn’t think

Smelled like sunshine

Just then