I Remember Rain, by Nancy Osborn

I remember rain . . .

dripping from the low pine branches all around our house

pounding on the tin roof of our bedroom in my grandmother's farmhouse

sliding down the sides of the tent — don't touch the fabric!

tapping on the sailboat's deck just above my head where I'm sleeping, in the forward cabin

running off the edges of my first umbrella, a gift from my father, from his visit to Switzerland

drawing the worms from the dirt along our path to school, so we would walk on the curbstones to avoid stepping on them

sweeping across the lagoon in Venice, which we could see from our 4th floor apartment

bringing out the street umbrella sellers in New York, Venice, Barcelona

falling all around us as we sit warm and dry on our upstairs porch

catching me unprepared on a hot, hot day; no umbrella, but who cares?

making the garden smell so lovely at dusk, once the storm is over

during my freshman year of college — my roommates and I walking in the downpours in our blue rubber mackintoshes, imagining we were living in A. A. Milne's world

blowing so hard against the windows of the train in Wales that everything I saw — fields, sheep, mountains — was seen from a watery perspective

turning into ice, then into hail, making such a racket on the day I sat with my mother in the hospital, under a skylight

changing into mist and fog in the autumns, when I lived in Maine

making the streets gleam at night under their street-lamps

and my rain-drenched pants wrapping their clammy folds around my legs . . .

. . . but I don't remember walking in the rain with a single one of my boy friends