rain in May

.

The blackened iron

of the stove

is ticking into coolness

when the first drops 

start against the roof.

It is late: the night

has darkened into this

like a fruit--

a sudden pear-aroma fills the room.

Just before dawn 

it comes up harder again,

a white, steady drum of day-rain

caught in the moon's deep pail.

A battered tin-light

overspills ocean and sky,

hill opens to facing hill,

and I wake to a simple longing,

all I want of this ordinary hour,

this ordinary earth

that was long ago married to time:

to hear as a sand-crab hears the waves,

loud as a second heart;

to see as a green thing sees the sun,

with the undividing attention of blind love.

~ Jane Hirshfield