Rain plinks the shingles of a house <br />Where I’d sure like to live; <br />Rain engorges too the ever, ever waves <br />Of the sea persuading the mangroves <br />And the blind white birds tucked in <br />Where I’d sure like to live; <br />And rain finds a way in through the green <br />Grottos, <br />The bottle caps the ancient baseball: <br />Where there are virgins enraptured in pieta <br />And mussels, where <br />Noses uncork salty perfumes, where shallow <br />Reefs palpitate with silent green kelp; <br />And there are pagan footsteps reaching down <br />From where she left her husband stranded <br />With the green cannons, <br />And started down, all in a mess; she said <br />She was going to Spain, but it was only her <br />Body that wept, <br />And the milky white horses watching from the <br />Distant stones seemed not to sympathize <br />And she came down that way, <br />While I waited holding my breath for a wish <br />In some dark and lovely cave, <br />The rains kind of wondered about <br />Stepping softly, or happening upon her shoulders <br />As softly as the softest pain <br />Where I’d sure like to live.<br /><br />Robert Rorabeck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/softly-as-the-softest-pain/
