When You Become the Rain
Martha Courtot

when you become the rain
things get easier
your hands grow more able to touch
the dusky earth

of course           your name changes
you choose           you insist on your choice

you move across the day
and light follows

having transformed          dissolved alchemized
you have said good-bye
to the whine of time

to the clicks and snaps
of fate, clothing, ironies

good-bye to the teeth of dawns
and mid-night caverns

to politics, children, and the sadness
of old movies

as you fall from a great height
you are finally yourself

soaking into leaves
lingering in the fine edges of things
entering at last into the earth

your voice          broken as it falls
in pieces down the glass of the day
lingers

your voice roots itself
and new flowers grow everywhere.