cradled in this heart
another heart bound in caverned Love
beats a rhythm on a seashore
so far distant that it left footprints
as guides

fallowed in this heart
another heart encompassed in shallowed love
boats its rower on confused melody
like a splooted animal
decides

to rest

a heart unites the divides
spools slowly slowly
its Love from a wheel
winds thready gossamers together on a distaff
knits the splooted with unsplooted
a generosity unanswered by the blind
and unlooked for by the unblind

how, then, is Love chimed?
how harmonized? how composed?
how, then, is Love sung?
spool it out deep into the Universe
to be unsung
as it is plucked on the Harp of Creation


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater

don’t give up on me
please
You are my heart
my reason to be
keep me ever in Hand

don’t give up on me
please
You are the Soul of my soul
my reason for life
keep me ever in Hand

don’t give up on me
please
You are the Keeper of my being
I surrendered my will to Thee
keep me ever in Hand

don’t give up on me
please
You are my eternal prayer
I surrendered my ease to Thee
keep me ever in Hand

guide me
please
through this hard and tortuous existence
that I might kneel to Thee in Heaven
where You will
keep me ever in Hand


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater

when I was fourteen
I still felt foreteen
there but not there
here but not here
there but not here
here but not there

I was opposite my opposite
an opposition of opposite
turning my heart
from right to wrong to left again
absent my mind and
immersed in brain
immersed in heart but
lacking soul
immersed in mind but
absent body
lacking sense and finding no joy
spending myself in neverending treasure hunts
the coinage of foreteen going on
fourteen


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater

she looks at the camera
her eyes full of sadness
and gives her best smile
trying for gladness

her heart shattered long ago
and it set off alarms
for a child pulled away
from her daddy’s loving arms

don’t cry daddy
daddy don’t cry
we’ll see each other
in the sweet bye-n-bye

in the sweet bye-n-bye
truth never dies
and angels caress you and bless you
and sweep off the lies

don’t cry daddy
daddy don’t cry
it will be so much better
in the sweet bye-n-bye


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater

is not what we’ve been taught it is
we do not fall In Love
we do not swim in a Sea of Love
with our lover

when we Choose Love
it is a sober decision
made by our heart, not our mind
not merely felt
made not by attraction of any kind

it is a state of being into which we step
being is tangible and alive
it is motion, direction, choice
it is not shifting sand
but consistency - a rock on which to build

falling in is accident
stepping in is purposeful
Love is universal not singular
Love accepts, does not reject
Love cherishes and caresses
it upholds and defends
does not look negatively or judge
it is ecumenical but not religious

Love is neither a cult nor a culture
it needs nothing to engender it
being Is
being In is stepping over a threshold
into ourselves
it is recognizing that we are Love already
and cannot fall into it ever
Love Is Being human
if we would let it


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater

she have skinny leg
an’ knockin’ knees
she be cray-cray an’ loud
she defen’ her right to be
she drownin’ in chems ‘n’ high as a kite
she walk ever’where when she floatin’
she so ol’ she temptin’ fate
how she ain’ died is a mir’cle
Gawd mus’ reely love dat womun
‘zall I kin figger


c. 2023 Roberta Compton Rainwater

the momentum of revealing the weapon

was slowed
at the knock heard from the door

was slowed
as antioch was conjured
by your voice
as you entered the room deliberately

was slowed
to a stop
because you appeared
and the would-be thief fled


c. 2023 Roberta Compton Rainwater