Sunday #25

Here's part 5 of the ongoing series of poems that me and fragondruit are doing.  This time, I borrowed two lines from her most recent poem (which, in turn, borrowed two from my last poem).  Those two lines are in italics.

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer" (rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September" (fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)
part 4: "Crash on M-131" (fragondruit)

on being a raindrop


some fall upon overpasses
deep into the autumn, when the winds
tell of the wintery future
and freeze before they all turn
to snow.

others are blessed with an embrace
at the end of their journey,
acceptance into the community--
a pool, lake, stream,
others like them, until they
no longer remember being
falling raindrops.

one raindrop protests--
    gravity lurks in the darkness
    of a never-ending elevator shaft,
    and slips his firm grip
    up from the depths and clutches
    my jellied knees
    and tugs until my eyes
    spin, searching for focus
    as the light pulses
    into a steady dimness,
    obscuring the line
    between safety
    and the rushing fall.

    I leave my vocal chords along
    the side of the road.  I am naked.
    thunder announced my descent,
    but I am diminished and impure,
    unworthy of a booming legacy,
    destined only to seep beneath
    the oily pavement, the gravel
    strewn upon the lingering grass.

    with time, I may rise again,
    only to fall, but the earth
    chains me beneath its skin,
    and I am lost, no longer
    a raindrop.