Again, tonight, the yearning place
where sorrow grows the soul:
its mushroom cloud comes billowing,
all soundless-swift, from pole

to pole. The sudden silence dropped
shuts out all else but this
convulsion, as of death or birth,
of agony or bliss.

Pain cleaved to, thus, itself cleaves us—
so flood in day and night,
and crowd and solitude, and stars
and sea, and depth and height.

For with each sob the heart will shift—
ajar, then open wide;
and, should it meet with tenderness,
will drink it deep, as dried

crazed earth will swallow steady rain,
and flush with gratitude
as green and bright as grass-shoots, young
and sweet and dazzle-dewed.

Coterminous, then, joy and fear
for we cannot make rain—
must helpless watch the sky, and pray
that it will come again.