Poem-A-Day: Waiting for Rain by Ellen Bass

September 30, 2013 Waiting for Rain by Ellen Bass     Finally, morning. This loneliness  feels more ordinary in the light, more like my face  in the mirror. My daughter in the ER again.  Something she ate? Some freshener     someone spritzed in the air?  They're trying to kill me, she says,  as though it's a joke. Lucretius  got me through the night. He told me the world goes on     making and unmaking. Maybe it's wrong  to think of better and worse.  There's no one who can carry my fear  for a child who walks out the door     not knowing what will stop her breath.  The rain they say is coming  sails now over the Pacific in purplish nimbus clouds.  But it isn't enough. Last year I watched     elephants encircle their young, shuffling  their massive legs without hurry, flaring  their great dusty ears. Once they drank  from the snowmelt of Kilimanjaro.     Now the mountain is bald. Lucretius knows  we're just atoms combining and recombining:  star dust, flesh, grass. All night  I plastered my body to Janet,     breathing when she breathed. But her skin,  warm as it is, does, after all, keep me out.  How tenuous it all is.  My daughter's coming home next week.     She'll bring the pink plaid suitcase we bought at Ross.  When she points it out to the escort  pushing her wheelchair, it will be easy  to spot on the carousel. I just want to touch her.        Copyright © 2013 by Ellen Bass. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "'Waiting for Rain' is from my forthcoming book, Like a Beggar. I've been noticing, in some poets I admire, what I've come to think of as the long-armed poem-a poem that reaches out and sweeps disparate, unexpected things into its net and yet the elements have enough magnetic attraction, enough resonance that the poem holds together. I wanted to try to do that with this poem so I could speak personally, intimately, while giving my feelings for my daughter a larger context."    --Ellen Bass Most Recent Book by Bass   Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on  weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.   Ellen Bass is the author of five books of poetry, including  the forthcoming Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). She currently teaches in the low residency MFA program at Pacific University, and lives in Santa Cruz, California.  Related Poems The Writer by Richard Wilbur My Daughter Among the Names by Farid Matuk Home After Three Months Away by Robert Lowell __________________________ Love reading Poem-A-Day? Help support it today.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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