Some Beautiful Things Yawp Video

All the trees slung low and heavy.

Four slim wrists emerge

from four open car doors

and simultaneously four umbrellas bloom.

Each person who rushes into this cafe

with their drenched faces and drenched pants

opens their jackets to a dry, warm middle.

They look around like Did you see that?!

Each one thinks they are the first

to tell us about the rain.

And the trees blown back, their cold faces released.

The little glints of streams across the asphalt.

The way the water rises like a huffed breath under the tires.

The time we sat in bathing suits and towels on the concrete

in a hurricane. He had just died.

That was not a beautiful thing, but it was important.

He still felt more like the birds in the storm, gone

but gone somewhere.

Our friends walked by with raincoats humped over their backpacks.

And you put on sunglasses and lifted your face to the downpour.

Yesterday you showed me how to water your whole garden.

How the young peppers need more. The summer squash in its own pot,

flowering and fruiting simultaneously, needs more.

I will do it. I will take care of your plants while you’re gone.

And I’ll do it because I love you.

But I know you wish I’d do it because I loved the plants.