It’s Raining in Duluth, 2021 by Deborah Rasmussen

–After “It’s Raining in Honolulu”

Unexpected rain kneads the hillside garden.
At table indoors, we are drenched
in the scent of earth redeemed.
We stare through open windows,
stop our forks midair in surprise,
or maybe ecstasy,
as though we have never seen rain
before this first meal together, unmasked.
How we thirst for an end to drought
and distance.
Rain softens our souls like the parched soil
where broccoli, beans, kale lift their leaves in wonder
as water flows vein to stem to stalk to root,
to the very depth of slowly healing hearts.