A Wild Surmise

Driven to Meet You in Rainy Weather

60 Driven to Meet You in Rainy Weather Because there is so much wanting, because desire is muscle and blood, I wait for you in rainy weather because my arms are full of life, because the wind that flusters my umbrella will shake your shining hair, because metal posts and signs can’t warm to the beauty of rain on your face like I do. We are driven because of so much wanting. We are driven muscle and blood to hold and wear each other. We are driven because the weather in our veins is warmer than the world. The weather in our veins is warmer than the world and as necessary as that storm was to teach us to pass tools across your muddy hillside, to teach us we touched through work, we touched through shovel handles, tile pipe, the rocks we carried. And wet all through and dirty and laughing we stopped all the water we could stop, channeled it off in trenches dug by hand, saved what we could save and I worked harder to reach you than I knew. 61 I worked harder to reach you than I knew. Was it three years or twenty years from turning my head from my feelings and like the old cliché, talking about the weather but not being able to change it? Don’t blame yourself for what I feel. I say blame the sky, blame clouds, believe in the stars’ grip of fate or the power of the moon to pull tears down my face. But don’t blame yourself alone for the storm breaking inside me, and don’t ask me not to cry when I think I could lose you now. Don’t ask me not to cry when I think I could lose you now. Too much has happened, too much like all the rain this year when one cloudburst followed another, turned simple roads into rivers. Don’t ask me not to feel adrift. The whole world this winter was afloat, sudden and powerful waterfalls roared out of the hills. But that was nothing compared to loving and loving finding you, finding myself driving in water over my wheels, driving to meet you in rainy weather. ...