Because I was born in the city of rain,
Took my first breath on a hill near the sea,
The grey sky is familiar to me as my own hand, is as
A childhood friend, a companion
When others would not come out to play;
Because I grew up in a forest
In the shadow of the mountains,
Beneath a ring of clouds and fog,
The semi-twilight is a comfort known;
But there is a shadow that dances
Beneath the feathered boughs of reaching trees,
And in silence there waits for a rustling,
A startling sound from above;
And because the rain falls gently,
Constant and repetitive,
The earth is moist and cries out
With greenness, with triumph,
And the sea-salt licks the sand
Of the rocky beach below the city,
While the soft mist of rain mingles
With the hustle-sounds above;
The driftwood floats smooth, worn
Like the face of an old man,
His life spent out-of-doors
Among the trees until he becomes like them;
And the mountain’s peaks, seen as a mirage
Appearing through the fog, watch as
A dream unfolds and waits;
And in a sleepy, restless state,
The clouds are memories above
Reaching like wind-hands that come away empty,
But the forest is not forgetful,
It is not despondent or sorrowful,
And there is no wilting branch,
Nor sagging peak in sight;
And there rises between the mountains and the sea,
Beneath the falling rain,
A secret known to those with this soil in their blood,
For though the grey familiar settles all around, there is
The sun, and with it a smile comes;
The secret that the natives know: the rain that makes the green
Precedes the sun, else no green would there be.
And months of rain may make the soul dreary,
But the sun comes with warmth, and the heart awakens.
And the warmth that seeps beneath the green
Is not distant, is not a foreign friend,
But it is the sound of your voice in my ear;
And those who know the power
Of a woman’s voice (how it is like
The wind that wears away the rock and
The sun returning at the end of a long winter,
The sea that washes away the sand),
They know and remember the feel
Of skipping stones across a pool
Inside one’s chest, how they do not slow,
Keep tapping on even as they disappear
Into the depths and reappear again;
And you are the sun in my world,
You are the wind that wears away my doubt,
And the sea that brings hope where there was none.