Poem-A-Day: Today a Rainstorm Caught Me by Matt Hart

January 31, 2014 Today a Rainstorm Caught Me by Matt Hart   Today a rainstorm caught me and I still have not recovered myself with drier blankets The brown leaves blowing off the trees, squirrels and robins cheering them on, but not   cheering me     And anxiousness has an owl by the throat, has me pill-popped up to Heaven Hill, head spinning one hundred eighty degrees, looking to the past and the future for some news about the present   which of course is useless     Even I know that     Mean- while, Agnes upstairs plays with Grace-- the little neighbor girl--not the idea of unmerited forgiveness in light      The two of them make up words to no music or to My Fictions and The Saddest Landscape   Sometimes it's hard to say which, no matter how hard I pretend to listen I am no expert at thunder and lightning I am no expert at eggbirds and ghost- typing the air to remember a song   Today a rainstorm caught me up The rain came down, and it still comes down The rain comes down is all I know   about how sometimes life finds me stupid on the porch with a couple of empty beer bottles, humming and waiting for god knows what, some warm weather to calm me, a few minor thoughts All these days, reasons end somewhere   The water still rolls with an owl in its blood We reverberate through it very softly       Copyright © 2014 by Matt Hart. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem  "This poem is pretty mysterious to me. I literally hobbled in out of a rainstorm (I'd been running), and wrote a draft of it, trying not to drip water on my computer. Earlier that afternoon, Agnes, my seven year-old daughter, had written 'eggbirds' in something she was writing, and I'm sure that made me think about owls. The poem seems to me a writhing thing, full of weird expectancy, and 'fraidiness,' and hopefully, too, a little love." --Matt Hart Most Recent Book by Hart Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books, 2013)         Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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.     Matt Hart is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books, 2013). He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band Travel.  Related Poems The Writer by Richard Wilbur Rain   by Claribel Alegría  My Daughter All Yourn  by Farid Matuk  __________________________ 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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