Tears like Rainfall

Photo by Chasinghorizonsphotography

A Poem by Alexis Ragan

When the sky opens up at night,

there is a clearing that causes

a palette of stars to blink back at me.

But what about when tears fall

as hard as forest rain? This ocular outpour,

a dose of dampness filling the air,

creates a sort of excitement in my bones,

awake now and tingling to the crisp

temperature of the wind bristling gracefully

through the evening sky. Why can’t I be

more like them? I mean the raindrops

that fall so freely, or the stars that blaze

with such passion? When your breathe moved

across the quiet night sky, I wonder,

did your chest rise like the sun every

morning? Or can I say that I am undone?

Like Isaiah, the brilliant heights and depths

of the Heavens cause me to unravel like a flower

does when the cold air wakes it up at dawn,

and as children do, I cry at the sight of the sky,

a masterpiece so marvelously magnificent

that tears begin to drop like rainfall from my eyes —

“Wash me clean, make me whole,”

I whisper with my face postured upwards

and my heart postured like bluebird’s

when they sing their sonnets at breakfast

time. Lord, you know how to make me cry,

You know how to trigger winters out of

their shells and into springs and summers,

you know me, and I know that tonight

I will cry forests more,

when the sky opens up

once again.