THE SOUND OF RAIN

recalls home.

My finger,
Writing on the wet window
The same letters our fathers taught us

has moved on,
and sketches the road-side shrine
where a Supreme God resides.

Walking out of doors
Wearing skin leavened by the sun,

My tongue erodes into the
Shrill orient of my neighbours
lolling at the fence,
Who greet me, and ignore me.

With the evening light
Mosquitoes, vampires of the hot season
Rise up,
To sip my sweet foreign blood,

Toads belch to their beloveds,
Fat divas of the drains.

Under a low white moon
The padi sings of its home,

A song that bites sharper than the
Cruel steel knots of this fence.

Robert James Berry

If you've any comments on his poem, Robert James Berry would be pleased to hear from you.