Let me be reincarnated as a fortunate drop of rain--
hurled against rocks, spattered on the road exposed, heedless, cycling through earth's drama without hesitation or remorse, resurrected to the sky. Opaque as floating fog or coloring a distant cloud with a rainbow sheen, tumbling past Zeus flinging lightning bolts-- the thunder amplified by the rattle of hail-- I could be as fearsome as an ocean storm or as hoped for as desert rain: cold-blooded, warm-blooded, frozen, splashing, languid-- all my moods perfectly formed. And with my serpentine gene, I will bend rivers through the land, linger as a reflection on a lake, then hurtle over rapids and waterfalls as a dash of white foam, feel the frisson of belonging until a quiet shallow tempts me downward to the caress of mud below. A root will take me in, to send me coursing up a tree where I might swell a bud to flower or, better yet, slip into a leaf and edging past its walls, be breathed into the air, floating upward—arctic white-- to become a flake of snow. The benediction of falling snow transformed into a glacier's patient crawl, I will become ice carving furrows into rock before becoming a river running free: spring will carry me to the ocean to be the sparkle on cavorting waves or keeper of sullen depths-- guardian of all, from whales to manatees. Floating with the tides, I will again be a beat in the cadence of raindrops, the cannonade of an avalanche, the lamentation of a stream-- or perhaps be snared by a passing bird, softly netted by the bristles of its feathered breast, consumed by the fire of its tiny heart: I could be that marvelous drop of rain. Nancy Christiansen
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AuthorI am a Northwest artist making collages from mulberry papers stamped by hand from original images that I have carved. Archives
April 2024
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