When You Came To Me / Rain by Martin Willitts Jr.

When You Came To Me

When you came to me, I was not here.

I was already dry leaves taken by wind 

past the stone wall borders

into the hands of darkness.

I was not in the language from a single cloud, 

nor could you see what you had unmade,

although the green was descending

from the fields, hushed slowly.

There was no judgement. It was as weightless 

as a scarf in a soft wind dreaming.

An opening does not mean anyone has spoken.

The air buckled behind me when I left.

I was not here when you came to see me, 

throwing bits of light like rose petals.

However, not one piece of life is stationary.

Wind can take darkness right through borders.

Judgement can descend, green and rippling, 

trailing clouds and red lights, and I will not

be there to see you turn away, again, hushed

as dry leaves, unspeakable leaves, and gone.

Rain

Listen to the rain’s obsession. It’s leisurely, 

unstoppable remorse. It is squatting over our house.

It runs back and forth like field mice. 

It’s monotonous.

It cancelled a parade; now, it is cartwheeling 

over the fields like a girl in love with a boy

too dumb to know how lucky he can be.

Rain soaks into skin, deep-rooted bliss.

It’s steady, heart-throbbing.

Even at dark noon, it bursts open again

and again, not offering reprieve, only revision:

rivulets of mud; sunken cars; drenched 

histories; the smell of damp ewes.

A wet monarch clings to a swaying milkweed.





Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, and a Central New York Individual Artist Award for "Poetry On The Bus".