Today's poem is by Jane Hirshfield

Wetness: An Assay
       

Take a square, a circle.
Flip it over, ask it to rotate: its face stays the same.

An isosceles triangle
doesn't choose which of its sides.

A blinking light
declares the whole night its far-off mountain.

A person, tilted a single degree,
knows their life altered.

Ever after, knows themselves guest in their own house.

Sometimes you see rain first, sometimes you hear it.
Wind doesn't come from all directions at once.

But anywhere rain is, that place is wet.

Wetness: knowledge of pelt, of hide, of skin.
Dear, ungovernable, shivering.

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Copyright © 2024 Jane Hirshfield All rights reserved
from Rattle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission