Bamboo groves sing the symphony of winds
in their crackling I hear my heart
on the red lone summer road.

The village woman passes with her cow
she has no time for poetry
yet her radiance fills me to beg life
more..

O Death be a while away
I've taken root on this land.

You wonder if she knows
If she can tell how deep it goes
This sadness that you carry neath your skin.

You wonder if she sees
The way you fall down to your knees
And how hard it is to get back up again.

You fear she’ll walk away
Leaving nothing in her wake
But the broken, shattered pieces of your soul.

But if you’d look, you’d see
She’s aware of everything
And she’s holding tight, trying to keep you whole.

sheds its bark an

armor piece at a time
from high on its trunk

where its heart would be
is that what creches first

rather than the soul?
(a volute of thought

from heart to head, this) --
like the healing of its bone

by the purring of the cat
or the birthing of a person

in the eye of the whale
or the movement of the heart

into the head
a balm of balsam

baal shemen
chief anointing in the

shedding of the tree
a chrism, the

extreme unction of Love


c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater

the weight of seven
hummingbirds -- 21 grams --
is what leaves the body
after death

on that hummingbird breath
the soul leaves
a wispering whisper
of seven tiny, winged cavatinas

being sung back
and singing themselves
forward
into the chorus

to enter again
a melody -- in
the Eye Of God

shimmering
iridescent
wings beating
the rhythm of Love



c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Woodcutter.
Cut out my shadow.
Free me from the torture
of seeing myself fruitless.

Why was I born among mirrors?
The daylight revolves around me.
And the night herself repeats me
in all her constellations.

I want to live not seeing self.
I shall dream the husks and insects
change inside my dreaming
into my birds and foilage.

Woodcutter.
Cut out my shadow.
Free me from the torture
of seeing myself fruitless.

The children observe
a point far, far away.

The oil lamps are put out.
Some blind girls
question the moon,
and through the air rise
spirals of weeping.

The mountains observe
a point far, far away.