The first poem I had published
In 1977, “After Rain” was published in a now defunct journal called”The Poet.”
After Rain
When the filthy air falls in rain
you can forget your footprints.
They, like life and youth,
have probably deserted you.
With the cold wind burning in
thru your thin clothes and
cutting your flesh up like meat,
the rain has probably passed, left behind,
the consistent creep of frost
out of the same night air.
It bleeds from the moon,
this iced dust, and clings
to the rain felled leaves.
The silver crunch of walking
thru the silence of ice is heresy.
But it does leave the sure imprint
of your past in the morning-
to-be- melted frost after rain.
Printed in The Poet 11/9/77