Poetry

Zen Rain

You figure things out when it rains.

You get a chance to think things through.

People walk home in the rain.

People look down in the rain.

People walk to the grocery store in the rain.

People get off buses in the rain.

Some people wear raincoats and galoshes.

Some people open umbrellas in the rain.

You can listen to the rain and wonder about it.

People wait for the rain to stop but it doesn’t.

The sound of the rain is who you are.

Rain is Zen because of every reason of Zen.

In the rain you ask who you are and the rain

tells you, you are the rain.

Everyone is a writer in the rain.

Everyone gets wet.

Everyone writes when it’s raining, especially

when it rains hard and does not stop.

When it rains you can sleep;

go somewhere and sleep–close your eyes

and dream of rain in the rain in dreams

and this is–a dream that is rain

which is time anyway and time is

over in the rain.

The water takes over time

in the flash flood rain, like in the movies.

There is nothing wishy-washy about movie

rain when characters duck into a storefront.

Hollywood rain does not stop unless there’s a

new scene or the script says the sun comes out.

Unless it is raining hard, there’s no reason

to write anything.

You are a writer only when it rains.

Otherwise, why do it?

You can figure things out when it rains.

You can think things through.

When it lets up it lets up and sometimes

it doesn’t but then it does and then you

don’t have to be a writer anymore and you

can be the rain again which is what you were

in the first place and before that and all along.

Daniel Sklar

Daniel Sklar Bio: Daniel Sklar teaches Creative Writing at Endicott College, and has been published in the Harvard Review, English Journal, Beat Scene, and the New York Quarterly among other journals. His books include Flying Cats, Hack Writer, and Bicycles, Canoes, Drums. His play, "Lycanthropy" was performed at the Boston Theater Marathon in 2012 and was reviewed in The Boston Globe. He rides a bicycle to work.

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