For My Niece Upon a Rainy Day

Just Rain

The clouds
did not say
soon, but who can tell
for sure, it wasn 't

the first time I had been
fooled; the sky-doors
opened and
the rain began

to fall upon all of us: the
grass, the leaves,
my face, my shoulders
and the flowered body

of the pond where
it made its soft
unnotational
music on the pond's

springy surface, and then
the birds joined in and I too
felt called toward such
throat praise. Well,

the whole afternoon went on
that way until I thought
I could feel
the almost born things

in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,
I just kept walking, thinking:
once more I am grateful
to be present.

~ Mary Oliver

(Evidence - Beacon Press, 2009)