RAIN BLESSING

    by Cappy Love Hanson


May the rain anoint you, goes the blessing 
in this droughted land.  May every drop
alight as lightly as a sparrow 
dropping to your garden for the last 
of last season’s seeds.  

At the slightest drizzle, we drop 
to desiccated knees or dance 
in thunder squalls, our bodies blazing 
like the molten air around a lightning shaft.  
Our hearts and hands rise in praise 
when tropical depressions peg their hems 
on nearby mountains; when deitific clouds 
column and anvil, sifting benediction 
over our thirsty eyes.  For us the rain 
is manna, the laying on of loved 
and long-awaited hands