{poem + story} my body, a wild sculpture of rainlife.

he said it’s going to rain today
but i don’t think that it will

because i haven’t yet felt the soil hold itself still
in the promises that keep the waiting

because i haven’t yet felt the sky descend upon
my skin with heavy moisture

like an oil lamp without a tongue

i haven’t yet felt the wind’s coolness move me
in clarity, anticipating

the musky, sweet, wet air
that can only be inhaled from the moistening earth
when winds marry rain

and water kisses water
deepening into a drop
containing all of our intimacy

how could it rain today?
we haven’t yet touched
nearly enough in one lifetime to be satisfied

no, not yet, bodhi rain

because the night isn’t raised yet
my body – a wild sculpture of rainlife

A little more:

My new poem is inspired by “It is Going to Rain” written by the beautiful Tohono O’odham author and poetess Ofelia Zepeda. Not only an amazing poetess, Zepeda is well known for her efforts in the preservation of and the promotion of literacy in Tohono O’odham – and has spent many years working with her tribe to improve literacy in both English and Tohono O’odham. In 1983, she developed “A Papago Grammar” from tapes of Native speakers because no textbook existed for the classes she taught. She is also the editor for Sun Tracks, a publishing program featuring Native American works. 

Like we talked about in “You will be in white” by Peyo Javorov, Symbolism was a movement which married the physical with the mystical, and the sacred. Symbolists attempted to weave natural imagery and metaphors to express the universal and the spiritual, tackling themes of love, trust, purity, temptation, faith and predestination. In its essence, symbolism, as described in the Symbolist Manifesto (“Le Symbolism”) by Green poet and essayist Jean Moreas, sets out to “clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form” and to reject “plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact descriptions.”     

Bodhi. Bodhi rain.

In Sanskrit and Pāli, the word “bodhi” translates to “awakening”, “enlightenment”. In Buddhism, bodhi is known as the final Enlightenment. It is essentially what leads us into a state of Nirvana, or when we can touch that ecstatic state, because we’ve seen beyond the limitations of our human minds, we’ve seen beyond the logic and reason, we’ve felt the unnamable fill us on our inside of. We’ve let go of conditioned beliefs, false beliefs, and we are awakened into our intuitive, inner truth and experience. In Japan and in Zen Buddhism, this is known as Satori. It’s the unexplainable and indescribable – it is the ineffable that only the souls and hearts understand, perceive and know. Bodhi is the Buddha “Awakened One” and also refers to the experience of Buddha when he sat under the Bo tree and suddenly all veils were lifted and he saw clearly.

When we come into such seeing, a sense of deep love and compassion and kindness takes over us – a sweetness, that molds us into a being of aliveness, vitality, and of love.

While this all may sound unattainable unless we meditate like monks all of our lives, every time we touch these feelings and seeings, because we love, because we give, because we play, because we laugh, loud in good ol’ belly laugh, because we see beauty in something tiny and small, because we hold the hand of someone we love and we hug them tightly, as tightly as possible, because our entire life is fulfilled when we see them smile – it is Bodhi. Even if only for a moment, it is Bodhi. And we remember. We remember our hearts. Because it was only ever love. Then. Now. Always.