It is raining and as usual you are standing in it, waiting. I don’t know why. It is a temperate rain. A body can easily warm what water soaks through. You are dressed for it much better than I am.
I want to give you something. A mint canister has been discarded. I pick it up and scrub it with the rain and my finger. I push its dents back out. I do the best I can, but you can still see where it was dented. It opens and closes well, but it needs something inside. I pick up a curl of hopeful red plastic and drop it in. I give it to you open.
You brush a wet lock off your cheek. The drops are heavy now. I don’t mind closing my eyes for a moment.
Next time I see you, I offer you a chain of paperclips. When it is sunny I gather twigs and wrap them in twine. But usually it rains. I am sure you are standing in it today, but before I find you, I go to look for pennies on the sidewalk. The shiniest was minted in nineteen eighty five. I promise you it will reflect a disk of light onto your palm once the rain clears away.
God this is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
I agree with Nic
Gorgeous.
The rain makes everything perfect.
Yeah. I love the rain too! :D Gray skies are my favorite. The coolness of the day and the lucid dark day just fades away. I think I see myself in this post.
I’m so lovesick.. :P
Just reading this as the rain is pouring down in Scotland. It’s very beautiful, well written.
I see you’ve edited these! I hand copied many of them into my notebook when they were first posted. The revisions are interesting.
I thought I’d point out to new readers that all of the comments preceding mine are responding to the original version.
My practice is this: if I make a revision to an old post that adds or changes the meaning of it, I say something, and if I make a revision that is cosmetic, typographical, or just makes it read better, but does not change what it says, then I do it quietly.
I sometimes revise pieces when they go from the website into another compilation, for example into a zine or chapbook. Sometimes that is for space, or to fill in context, or to match them to the arc of the compilation they go into.
Once in a while, I also touch up an image, usually by re-sizing it or by fixing problems with contrast that somehow went unnoticed, in a couple of cases, I fully re-did an image.
I have also added hidden text to every Secret Vespers image. Once I figure out how, I’ll make it visible on mouseover, but for now it is all hidden.
Thank you for clarifying. I don’t remember noticing any of the image touch-ups, but I noticed the couple you re-did. I didn’t question the new images when I saw them a while back, I guess because meaning still inheres more in words than in images for me.
I disagree that the changes you’ve made to this particular post don’t change the message! But I was quite attached to the original, from which I drew creative inspiration. Perhaps I don’t yet have enough perspective to judge.