This rain,
which falls so lovingly,
not too hard, not too soft,
on leaves and grass
and on itself in puddles,
should fall on my beloved sister,
whose dry forests
are in flame.
Can you do this, wind?
Droplets, fly west!
My brother,
whose house of wattle
whose trailer
whose car whose cattle
whose mother
all were carried off by wind and water,
calls
from the top of the terp.
Pray for us, he says.
There is nothing left, he says.
We may as well be dead.
Our father, who had yet to mourn,
weeps openly now,
and speaks
of how he never meant for any of this to happen.
“Fire and Rain” first appeared in John Terpstra’s collection Call Me Home published by Gaspereau Press, Kentville, Nova Scotia, 2021
Photo by Valentin Müller on Unsplash
