Real Rain

Prosy poem or poemy prose? You decide.

Middle of the night stirs to hear the rain on the roof

After so long it surprises me

Not a thunder-rain or a wonder-is-it-there-rain 

But a Real steady splish sploshing and pitter pattering

I sleep away and wonder the wheres of January snow

Slip awake again and not expecting rain

Yet still as real and still no thunder

The uncanny silenced Kansas thunder

Remembering when I first realized

That in other places it rained without

Booms and lights and storm chasers

Tornado watches and wind that tears the leaves

In books is rain that falls without these things

We sometimes got a quiet rain but never Real

Just sprinkles, sudden showers or mists in the dark
How odd for it to rain without the shake of thunder

No other shoe dropping from the sky
Do not showers always draw up thunderstorms?

Woke again at wake-up-time and still it really rained

A strange comfortable cloudy darkness

Wishing for a cozy listening all day long

Recalling green and droughtless England

And a lush wet Kansas spring right before a brutal summer

When I stared at the world as though just three days old

Workday called my name and rose and went and still it rained

Soon out of mind until someone asked
And someone mentioned only mist

It made me sad to hear it gone

The Unborn

Something a little more serious...

This is to those who are not yet birthed,
   not yet able to stand.
This is to those who are not yet present,
   not yet able to choose.
This is to those who are the future,
   are the hope of our land.
This is to those who are held without rights,
   are destined the battle of life to lose.
This is to those for whom the barren hope,
   for whom the childless ache to hold.
This is to those who, for pleasure, have been wrought,
   for pure convenience, discarded.
This is to those who would have been the saviors of mankind,
   would have been the doctors to find the cures.
This is to those who would have been the heroes of our country,
   would have been the ones to give their lives.

This is to those thousands of unborn children,
   to those millions of knife-wounded hearts.
This is to those opportunities lost,
   to those little ones' aborted lives.