A Poem a Day (737): Chasing water

 
Chasing water
 
You can smell the rain melt into the trees,
spray the sidewalk a-glitter, invisible chaser,
staring up at sunlight cracking the sky,
a portal promising a backward glance.
Summer breeze shrouds you like a lost coat.
It glistens on your cheek, tickles eyelashes,
trickles down the tilt of your nose,
soaks your skin and T-shirt, skimming
denim shorts, your legs in silken warmth.
This moment sticks on pause. Drifts over.
Just you and the rain. The elements and you.
You blink it back. Endless.
 
He crosses the zebra, avoids the scattergun
of traffic, squints against the tumult,
this downpour heavy like lead, feels it
different, the burden of it. Pain wrapped
in a bow, a rainbow swirl of memories.
The air shifts, a momentary glove,
almost holds out its hand to shake.
A near-miss as a taxi snakes past.
Jump to the kerb and scatter your heart
in the gutter. It’s an instant switch,
this scene dissected into a kaleidoscope
turning, a cubist painting unravelling.
 
She rests her body without motion,
listens to the elemental language,
fingers scooping her hair into place.
A quiet wildness. She doesn’t care.
Water circles down the curve of her back.
She wears socks and trainers like a kid,
yet she’s anything but, in her stance,
in her tranquil contemplation of air,
the leaves in the silver birch above
arching to protect her. She feels it all.
He stands caught in her energy for a time,
outside the hissing spiral of traffic,
all the chaos silenced, erased, blocked,
and only she exists here, unrivalled.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, October 1, 2025