I hear your voice in my sweetheart’s lullaby.
Let’s share the moonlight, he sings
in the waltz time melody he wrote for me.
I hear your voice in the notes of his ukulele
and the whir of hummingbird wings,
bamboo fluttering in the breeze
and the silence of the butterfly’s flight.
But in these days of smoke and ashes
my ears yearn to hear you in the rain,
falling on leaves and roof,
sliding in rivulets down the windows.
Oh, won’t you pour into the eave-guarding gutters
And gurgle through the downspouts?
With chapped lips and a dry throat
I praise you
and raise my rough and calloused hands.
You soothe us now with our own tears,
but I implore you,
sweeten my song with freshwater,
let us fall asleep to your voice in the rainfall.