When Rain Meant Joy
O how the heavens weep, and streets now brim,
With silver streams that once bespoke delight—
When I, a child with heart and spirit trim,
Would greet the rain as herald of respite.
No burdened brow, no clock’s relentless chime,
No ledger’s weight, nor soul’s unspoken ache;
Just stolen hours outside of ordered time,
Where paper ships did glisten in their wake.
The television hummed its careless tune,
A battlefield of laughter, cries, and light—
We sparred for remotes 'til sleepy noon,
Then drifted off ‘neath screens still burning bright.
No thought of future’s fangs nor fortune’s call,
No pondered dread, no echo of regret—
Only the thunder’s lullaby to all,
And dreams where age had not encamped us yet.
But now the rain invokes no joyful shout,
It tapers slow against a jaded pane;
The child I was—long exiled, locked without—
Would scarce believe I flinch to see the rain.
Work waits like winter—cold and never far,
And home, once haven, hums with anxious tune;
Each drop a drumbeat of a distant star,
Each puddle not a pond, but solemn rune.
O for that boy, in standard fifth or sixth,
Who’d dance in floods with heart so full and wide
Unfettered by the grown world’s tangled myth,
Unbroken still, with wonder as his guide.
