A Prayer for Rain by Lisel Mueller
We began the day with rain today, carrying over from yesterday. Now the day is beautifully sunlit, but as much as I enjoy lovely sunshiny days, a small part of me misses the rain....
A Prayer for Rain
By Lisel Mueller
Let it come down: these thicknesses of air
have long enough walled love away from love;
stillness has hardened until words despair
of their high leaps and kisses shut themselves
back into wishing. Crippled lovers lie
against a weather which holds out on them,
waiting, awaiting some shrill sign, some cry,
some screaming cat that smells a sacrifice
and spells them thunder. Start the mumbling lips,
syllable by monotonous syllable,
that wash away the sullen griefs of love
and drown out knowledge of an ancient war—
o, ill-willed dark, give with the sound of rain,
let love be brought to ignorance again.
Originally appeared in the March 1964 issue of Poetry magazine.
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