how trackless the poet's way
through the world of her heart
into known places following invisible paths
explorer with oft-held breath
exhalation serves to ground her
and open wide her eye
to discover that, despite abyssal
steps and flightless breath,
she knows her way full well.

I am come I am come
with wedding veil and cumerbund
to find a marriage in myself
and union with my Self

I am come I am come
like Eliot's poetpath revealed,
to find a Self I had forgot
yet always did I feel.


c. 2014
Roberta Compton Rainwater

When you look at me
Do I not have glory about me?
Am I not a shimmer of Light?
This is my body
This is my soul:
A flowing, shimmering,
glowing incandescence of passion
expressed in the sensuous lines of my body
An incandescence like none other
A fire within and without
Embering all of me
I spark all who approach
I spark all who stand away
My incandescence encompasses all who think of me
For I am a constellation of Light -
A galaxy nursing new Lights -
A womb incandescent with Light
I am thou and
You are me
We are sovereign and encompassing
Sing my Light on the throated cords of Love.

O, how my heart lifts
when songs echo from my core
in pathways little used or known
it leaves its footprint locked in stone
for me to follow when I may.......


c. 2014
Roberta Compton Rainwater

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