Revisitor

Of that text rain is the great speaker,
from whom hush humbly
repeats its early lessons & over
again at the gray porch, the steps
I approach in all the weathers
that turn, as they do, to rain.

A stray mind in multiples of
nuance rides the distance
home for a word where it's warm,
& where welcome prepares of itself
a leafy soup dipped after grace into bowls.
Rain fills the bowls, rain
seats me there.

Rain sings scat over the car
radio tune I accompany
with a new lyric or two. The farther
away I start from the better
to introduce you with my dear the
wolf said; I knew him then &
there & now: those syllables.

Martha Zweig

"Revisitor' first appeared in The Bellingham Review and is collected in What Kind, Wesleyan University Press, 2003.