Understatement: Monsoon is not our favorite season. We dread the damp clothes and sheets, the giant spiders, the slick walk to school, the leeches. But it still has its beauty, and I've been working on a poem to (somewhat?) capture that.
But I embrace that first hard rain:
Monsooned
My dog squints stiffly
against the driving droplets,
ears flattened, looking old and mean.
But I embrace that first hard rain:
water pillows in my sneakers,
salty sweat tracks paths across my cheekbones,
wet fabric clutches my back,
that smell of drenched pavement invades my nose.
**
Mist swallows the mountains,
disappears whole geographies.
We walk within clouds.
The fog slicks our skin,
hugs the faded streetlights.
I find the uneven ground beneath my feet—
It rises to meet me.
This night is moonless and full.
**
The outside invades our home.
Mold cracks the cement walls,
turning spring green paint to mottled nests of foam.
On our shower door, two mushrooms
bloom slowly.
**
Walls of hydrangeas
wedged against stone.
They beam from within grassy banks,
their lush purple blues
a reminder of twilight skies.
**
When it clears, the landscape shifts,
dust settled, haze gone.
That small village across the valley comes alive.
Every tin roof sends back sun,
every painted wall shouts,
every footpath newly snakes
across the green expanses.
**
The jeweled grass, soft and tall wilted waves
undulates between weeds.
Against this, a clear blue field.
The light flattens nature’s soft curves
into pure geometrical shapes,
and we enter stunned, relearning
our place in a new world.
Emboldened, we abandon umbrellas—
those bulky extra arms.
Their heft gone, we stride easily along
muddy pathways, avoiding stubborn puddles.
This is beautiful Mel!
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