Meditation on Rain on a Blue Porch
This shower speaks of Evans’ piano.
A light touch on the roof —
a remembrance of the bleeding—
a dampened cry and the blunted
hope that “We Will Meet Again,”
knowing we won’t.
*
Meditation on Rain on a Black Porch
The drops echo Trane’s
“Impressions Live at the Village
Vanguard.” My grief keeps pace
with the velocity of the music and my heartbeat.
16th notes flow skyward like Black
bodies in a summer of tempests.
*
Meditation on Rain on a Red Porch
The thunder calls first, then the flash. We comfort ourselves
with lies: We’re safe here. We’re not afraid of ghosts
or what we owe them. It’s the ozone scent
of lightning that reminds me of Cage’s “First Construction
(in Metal),” the iron in a blood-red stream,
the scream when it overflows its banks.
*
Le Hinton is the author of six poetry collections including, most recently, Sing Silence (Iris G. Press, 2018). His work can be found or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2014, The Progressive Magazine, the Skinny Poetry Journal, The Baltimore Review, The Pittsburgh Review, and outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
