Christopher Kuhl’s most recent poem to appear here was “The Illustrated Life of the Body” (September 2019).
Rain. Hawk. River and Sea
By Christopher Kuhl
The air is fat
with rain. You can’t
see it,
but you can hear it,
feel it in your hair,
running between
your shoulders. We are in
a field, faces streaming
rain tears.
I hear you behind me,
running away through
the wet grass. When the rain
stops, hawks will circle:
Which of us will see one first?
And what will it signify? A boy
become a man? If he finds
a feather, he will weave it
into his fine, dark hair, doubly blessed.
And his land’s many rivers will interweave
until they empty into the sea,
boys to men flying en masse,
calling back and forth beneath
the measures of the moon.
