rain and ruin

If they sang it out, it didn’t help. The rain came anyway, like a number on the calendar or a phase of the moon. Tomorrow is just a tick and a tock— a trick of the tongue, a mark on the page— not a time on the clock. The one who waits waited too long— sorry for the L, Sun Tzu. Now it’s only the empty of the hour, where the coming up blank meets the blank page. The words always want the work. Use them till they’re worn clean through, the rain won’t even notice.

It all falls into place, the chittering of sparrows in the pine, the rhythm of the rain on the roof, the long low wail of a distant train. Prelude to the heartbreak of sundown, love swept out to sea. The story always that there was no story. Words strewn all about, no use in giving them a second glance. This, then that, then something else altogether. A multitude of possibilities that always break the same. Something eating at the eyes and liver. The boulder as doubtless as the day.

The count goes on, of graves and babies, of sports and seasons, of loves and losses and all the rituals of the calendar and the lash. The fool falls again and again, baffled by the laughter and the little dog. The dead horse beaten to a pulp, the heart staggers to a halt. Oblivious of mark or folly, as lost as any wilderness, landing like a joke. So the show must go.