Poem by Katya Sabaroff Taylor

Can you ever write enough poems?

Can you ever stop talking about this

relentless rain and how the

blue hydrangeas bow under its dark dappling

or about the birds hiding in the thick limbs

of the bending swaying magnolia?

I gaze at the world

through my window.

a world so vast, a storm so wild.

Something drops and breaks,

the day becomes suddenly evening

though it is not even five o’clock.

Can I describe wondering if this

could be a hurricane, if everything I know

will be smashed or flooded, if I am doomed

if my city is doomed

if I can save myself, my home, my town

by writing this poem?

I can believe what I tell myself

to believe, I can be the magician

the shaman the prophet

who averts danger and yet

delights in the tumult of the thunder,

who recoils from the too-close lightning

while breathing OM OM

and letting the words cascade

like the fountain from a now broken gutter.

Oh the thrill of what cannot be controlled

but must be experienced,

gotten through, overcome, lifted up,

restored, embellished, made beautiful.

This is my job, my mission

and now the rain becomes a massive

sheet of water, erasing even the sight

of my flowers, the birdhouse, only the

sky committed to this moment

oversees the deluge

as I make haste to consecrate

the blur, the roar, everything shaking

but I’m still upright, recording it all.

KA

June 23, 2020