by Denise Levertov
Let the rain plunge radiant
through sulky thunder
rage on rooftops
let it scissor and bounce its denials
on concrete slabs and black
roadways. Flood the streets. It’s much
but not enough, not yet: persist,
rain, real rain, sensuous,
swift, released from
vague skies, the tedium
up there.
Under scared bucking trees
the beach road washed out —
trying to get by on the verge
is no good, earth crumbles into the
brown waterfall, but he backs up
the old car again and CHARGES.
The water flies in the halfwit’s eyes
who didn’t move fast enough
“Who do you think I am, a horse?”
but we made it —
Drown us, lose us.
rain, let us loose, so,
to lose ourselves, to career
up the plunge of the hill
1955
From:
The New American Poetry 1945-1960, Donald Allen
Copyright ©:
University of California Press (1999)
- Share this Poem:
