Kennetcook Rain

by Roger Davies

Water takes a rest
in the third state,
having,
for those moments
"neither set volume,
nor shape"
which sounds, to me,
like a respite brimming…

and coming toward us
blessed Westerlies
rising up, over, Blomidon,
and flowing over the monumental
body of Glooscap
and over the monumental body
of Fundy sliding again again
up Avon's waiting body,

winding now up the Kennetcook
Valley, drawn forth presently
into a shape shifting invitation:

state 3 to 2
"having a set volume
but not form"
the form finding itself
in the rush to Earth,
a tear drop
each round-headed feather-tailed
gift
being Earth-attracted
and attracting Earth!

To the pregnant dirt
of Maple Creek Farm,
awakening yet again
the Goddess of Grass,
the Daisies in their profusion,
the Thistle, a swaying chorus
of green, purple, white:
singing the Hymn of Wind

…water made into Grassness…

now laid in the manger,
on the drying floor of the shadowed
barn loft
where the sounds of cow's eating
rise up, a mantra on the meaning of grass,
where Swallows
surf a Swallow world,
an ancient modern dance

and where each glorious molecule
shall now take its leave,
ascend up the sun-touched airs
of the Kennetcook Valley,
a Goodbye
to a leavened body of gold.