The Good Dark

East of the house
the frogs on the pond
prime the clouds
with thunder
under windy cattails.

The whole sky
boils black
as gunpowder
in the summer roll
of drums.

The rabbits
out of your garden
dive into little houses
under the grass,

and, surely, like you
gather the good dark
of home
about them
and sing
in the bombardment
of rain.

Copyright © 2001 Jim Barnes All rights reserved
from On a Wing of the Sun
University of Illinois Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission of the poet and the University of Illinois Press