By Renée Ruderman
Beneath the heavy gray suit the sky wore,
I cheered for the rain, breathed in
petrichor, blinked with the
lightning, and bayed into the thunder.
Below me, lindens, almost blooming,
leaves bathed and massaged by
a swelling rain, dangled their
yellow jewels in the steam.
And the patches of grass quilted
with trailing bindweed and clover
stretched like sun-worshippers
over the moistened clay of the earth.
And me on the gray couch,
the cat, under the slipcover
of the chair dancing a rhumba,
black tail poking out, swaying.
The luckiness of a home
enclosed in the chill
of cruising clouds;
the sun, a pledge
in the slick shadows.
Renée Ruderman is an English Professor Emerita from Metropolitan State University of Denver who has published Poems from the Rooms Below, Certain Losses, and Pillow-Stones. She has a number of prizes, numerous publications, and a tuxedo cat.
