Poem for the Weekend: Robert Creeley

 

I've been away on vacation and so, did not have a poem prepared for this week. I decided to Google one, maybe something about summer, but noticed that the first thing that popped up when I typed the single word, "poems" was "poems about rain." So although the weather is entirely southern-California perfect here today, I give you a poem about rain. Because apparently, it's the sort of weather that gets people thinking about poetry. If you're wondering what the second Google prompt was, it was "poems about love," another topic that figures into Robert Creeley's rain poem. You can read about the author here.
 

The Rain

by Robert Creeley (1926-2005)

 

All night the sound had   

come back again,

and again falls

this quiet, persistent rain.

 

What am I to myself

that must be remembered,   

insisted upon

so often? Is it

that never the ease,   

even the hardness,   

of rain falling

will have for me

something other than this,   

something not so insistent—

am I to be locked in this

final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,   

lie next to me.

Be for me, like rain,   

the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-

lust of intentional indifference.

Be wet

with a decent happiness.