Am I not touchable?
Have I not breath
or song
or voice to speak?
Have I not eyes
to see your soul?

What matters this body?
Is it not full and sensual?
Does it not burst forth
from the soul
just as light beams from the eyes of God?
Has it not a duty
to be as graceful as an angel's wings?

This body matters
and is not all.
I am full and glorious of God
in my fullness.
Sing my praises
for I am the compostella
from which all dreams are born.

c. 2014
Roberta Compton Rainwater

* *Field of stars

She claims he moves the trees
every time he cuts the field,
expanding and changing the view from
the living room window.
The laws of Nature and
the roots of trees being what they are,
I know she really means
he's her Magic Man
and this farm is his crystal cave.
His familiar, a spark of a dog
they've named Missy,
roams in and out of
the magic of this place at will,
appearing and disappearing from one breath to the next.
The laws of Nature and
the nature of dogs being what they are,
I know that some dogs, and things,
are like that:
magical to the bone.


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014
to my sister

Old Neptune marks his boundaries today, leaves sargasso
and thin, bamboo-like reeds on the shore of Dauphin Island. He blows briskly, to urge his white steeds to the seashore.
The water is dark with disturbance, veined with foam like tatted lace. The scent of Neptune swallows the fast-moving air crossing
the island from Gulf to Bay sides. Oil rigs
haunt the horizon like boredom, breaking
the vista, reminding all who see them of human limit. Old Neptune accepts no limit, no boundary. We, who want fixity
as security, we watch as Neptune abuses boundaries, expands us
whether we want him to or not. There is no fixity; yet there is security. There is consolation in flow, in flowing with Great Neptune, rolling in his
tidal urgencies.


c. 2014/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

where the dark night of the soul
                                                        ("ha­lf-seen on the edge of air")
                  meets
the dark soul of the night   which
                                                        ("f­rom the throat of cosmic vortices")
                  stands in
the charred ashes of surrender
                                                      (­"like a jack-lighted deer")
                   greeting.



c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014

moan  sordid  fiddle
drool music like blood
like
a lather  rusted  onto beauty
lick   scream   boil   smear
        whisper    iron  harshly


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014

I want Neptune
to come out
of the Gulf
reining
pale
untame
charioted waves
I want his imprint
on the brined wash
and
I want to ask him questions.
Do mermaids dance?
(for example)
Are hippocamps?
(for another)
Are starfish fallen celestials, antic?
Is drowning frantic?

I want the vasty deep to erupt
into answers, synaptic explosions
connections
connecting
to
me
I seek myself in saltwater
Creation's alphabet soup
to swallow me
to disconnect the disconnection of me.

Come Neptune. Come from my primal self
into my Self and connect me to me
and me to you and us to them.
Push your wild beasts from the sea
and come into me.


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014

with bark like alligator skin
the pines reach up up to the sky
eighty   one hundred   feet they fly their needles
as if to say
here we are O Wondrous One
take us
do with us as You will

little shake-tail squirrels chitter above me
as if to say   go away! this is our pine
you don't belong here!

I reply
I do belong here    the pines have told me so
I do belong here
the wildflowers have said so
and the creek has burbled its assent as well

I belong here   I repeat
I will stay here among the pines with alligatorskin bark
and the winds singing through the wood
and the creek seeking the sea
yes I will stay

and I will roll in the feeling of belonging like a dog rolls in herbage
and savor that I belong   I belong   here/now
at last


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater
2009/2014