Poems for Peculiar Children

Before the Rain

Here again, before the rain, the sediment before the shame
The same—no one no thing to blame.
In plain and perfect parallels, in dusty caramels
Emerges from a will unnamed, its leafy citadel, the beauty of a beast
So plain still yet implausible.
Farewell, simplicity—felicity now feasts where once reigned parables
And vain reclaims the stately moods,
The earthy rising, misnamed moralizing, omens tantalizing.
Permission feigned; ambition gained:
The reckoning before the rain.