BONES AND WEATHER - a poem

BONES AND WEATHER

I can be chilled to the bone,

but not heated.

I can be punctuated by rain.

Notice how just a little wind makes for a deeper silence

Like a gentle rain, 

between the sounds of drops falling

there’s a gap, a punctuation,

but a big rain is a run-on sentence.

And it never goes up, they say.

Really, it is always going up

just massively and silently.

Evaporation whispers up

just like gravity pulls us down 

also in silence.

Something lifts us up continuously and mysteriously,

all the rain lifting heads and becoming clouds.

The sun draws us up along with flowers and trees.

“As the flowers turn toward the sun, 

By the dint of a secret heliotropism,

The past strives to turn toward that sun 

Which is rising in the sky of history.” (W. Benjamin)

Articulations punctuate the bones,

like turning points in history,

bringing lightness and movement 

through the darkest places and times.

Everything opening and striving up 

to drink the sky.

The denser parts of the atmosphere,

Rocks, and even our bones, 

Feeding on light.

• David Lauterstein, 2024