One Sunday’s Rain (After Word of My Father’s Illness)

All morning: rainwater 
off the roof onto pebbles 
washed smooth of pale soil 
in the garden. 
After weeks of dust, 
vowels and spilled consonants 
of water. . . . 
I stay close to the sound 

like my father in the Rockies, 
who would camp only 
where the madrigal stream 
could enter the cocoon 
of his fire and his sleep 
and move on 

and move on 
with the night 
standing still. 
All morning I listen 
behind arguments and laughter 
of children, the ragtime 
my son plays at piano. 

I carry the rainwater 
sound through each motion, 
through late traffic and wind, 
the stretched silence 
from the wires 
that brought us the news; 

ladle it 
like eternal life 
into bowls on the table — 
each portion a clear, 
silvered tone 
of the water.