Don’t forget to light a candle in the western window
For that one trying to find us. . .
That way the setting sun, peering through the trees
With its one exhausted eye
Will be able to go down reassured. . .
Just light the candle
And to bed. . .
No matter what we do
There will always be forgiveness
And blame,
But tonight, perhaps more forgiveness. . .
What power we humans have
To create storms of grief!
And yet when the wind moans and sighs
And the rain lashes everything,
We still think
That something else has all the power. . .
. . .At least we ought to know
When someone is coming
But we don’t even know when someone is here!
The sun was here!
And now the rain.
And someone is coming.
But right now the rain is here.
The rain is that old friend who shows up uninvited,
Or that kindly efficient nurse who bursts in
To make our bed, unphased by our delusions. . .
We are surrounded by endless desert,
And the rain walks in
Because our heart says, “Don’t bother knocking dear. . .”
Or maybe it keeps falling because it wants us to stop,
Whatever we are doing that is so arid.
And rain doesn’t ask what hurts,
Simply takes our head in its hands and begins to knead it
Back into a ball. . .
How sweet to have a friend like that
Who doesn’t pay any attention
To our illusions because it knows
That we have just forgotten
A few things. . .
Such as where we really are,
And who we are
And, oh yes,
Why we light a beacon
In the western window.