Thousand Fingered Rain  [Back]
                                    

all night long off and on
trailing unnoticed to sleep    waking
with change from night silence to night
rain thumping canvas drum of tipi
with thousands of wet-tipped fingers

dry and warm in this great drum
this great sounding    this great rhythm
of night and rain and sleep and wake
heat of burning fast   heat of burning
slow to low smolder of coals

this is my fire    a lifetime and more
gathering wood to stoke the ring of burning
rising    subsiding    sweating    shivering
eyes watered in smoke    eyes
parched in the dancing heat

this circle of being becoming doing
tending and learning to tend the flames
lower and lower    the wood less and less
learning to tend the fire to nothing

everything dances pulses flickers throbs
thousand-fingered rain on skin
life stretched tight over bones    heat
in lodge of ribs and flesh and skin
breath a rhythm within the rain

outside is inside    another outside
and these fires must burn in degrees centered
in each lodge    smoke and heat
energy    rhythm    frequency and breath
from this to the next to the next to the next

thousand-fingered rain

© 1997 
   by Richard Todd