HALLOOING IN THE RAIN (POEM 3 --- JUMPS OUT OF QUATRAINS)

RAIN ON THE TRAIL

There is a scampering of grace/In the dry woods/ And a pulse upon some soliloquy: / It is the rain come as a lace/ Smooth and forbidding upon the cup/ Of the dead and dying weather!
--- Fugue in Narra’s Rain, Narra Poems and Others, 1968





Something about running naked in the rain
recalls some lost decades withered now in
a fading trail hallooing with surprised laughter
tickled out of our backs by sudden pellets of rain.

The river! The river! Chanted my little lass

Skipping to the tempo of scampering rain:
Let’s swim there, abuelo! Let’s dance in the river!
Brown and slithering over scraped-clean rocks,
the river meanders sans snails, eels, or crayfish,

Now emptied of carp, catfish, small-mouth bass.

O, how we could have raucously scared the wren
with catcalls while mounting a wading caribou,
but those were noises of our lost years when
naked lads swam with dung and water buffalo.

We can’t swim here, hija mia, City Hall says clean
rivers are for clean table fish. We do have our rain.


--- A. B. Casuga
August 22, 2010, Mississauga