Sunday, November 30, 2014

Sunday, Thoughts of Rain


Outside my window
It's raining like hell
On my neighbors orange tree

It's California
In November
And it's finally raining

A real storm
And everyone is thankful
For the gift from crying clouds

That same gift
They don't notice anymore
In Hawaii

Or Florida, where I remember
It rained every day of my vacation at 3:00p.m.
And went unappreciated by everyone but me

They say California is mostly high desert
They say we should treat water like gold now
They say we should have been doing this all along

But, of course, nobody listens because 
We always grow careless with what we have
When we think there's plenty

And we live our days
Like there is a never-ending supply
And an abundance of all things

So now I collect the cold water
That gets pushed along
By the hot water slowly crawling 

Through the old pipes
as it makes its way to my shower
And last night's dirty highball glass in the sink

And I sprinkle these buckets of gold
On the dying plants in the garden
And give the rest to the dog

On days when there are no crying clouds 
Swollen with nature's gold
To wash my neighbors oranges.


Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   November 2014

2 comments:

  1. Nice work. I like how it gets back to the personal imagery (greywater, highball glass...) toward the end and then reprises the motif from the first stanza to bring it home. I'm a sucker for orange tree references. -mau

    ReplyDelete
  2. Personally I'd rather see it say my green smoothie glass ss then I'd know you were taking better care of yourself.
    Nice poem ken as usual!

    ReplyDelete