Poetry
Rain After Drought
While talk circled about the room, circled heedlessly, from each
to each
A word there, and laughter, chairs moving, and then words
again,
Above the casual interchange and interflow of speech
I heard the rain.
I heard the rain beginning slowly to fall,
Quiet heavy drops, one after the other, upon my thirsty tree,
And someone turned to the window and spoke: "It's raining after
al!"
They went on talking, but for me, for me,
The rain was like a secret; I did mark
Its measured progress, talked, observed, but heard the rain,
Laughed too, but all my senses roved the dark,
Beyond the room and the voices, beyond the dividing pane.
To those others, it was only raining; it was my secret; sad and
brave
Traveled my thought two ways on separate errands, while it did
fall;
I heard it patter quietly on the unquiet grass of a new
grave;
I listened while, with patient assault, it fell on the roof of him
I love,
Who never loved me at all.
Mary Morison Webster
