THIS APPALACHIAN RAIN

This Appalachian rain
whispers in the weedy grass
and spatters on my mother's
driveway,
running in rivulets
to the street
and on to Vine Road,
then into the creek,
where time and gravity
will carry it
toward New Orleans
and the sea.

I am 53 & I grew up here
and time and gravity
are hauling me homeward.
Now, hemmed in by low clouds,
mist obscuring distant trees,
life wet and green and gorgeous
all around me,
I can picture this without me.

But as my insides ache
with something I could sort
into a dozen points of philosophy,
I know that when the last life dies,
when the universe goes dark
and there is no epitaph,
no flicker of remembrance,
that, childless
as the rain fell
and the robins sang
and a white Miata
rolled in the direction
of the runoff,
I was here
on a warm July afternoon
on the porch of the house
i grew up in.