Rain Dance

This week’s poem, “Rain Dance,” is a little different for me. Of all my poems, it is one of the very few that is self-consciously rhythmic. It also employs a fair amount of onomatopoeia: words whose sound mimics their meaning (like the way “buzz” buzzes when you say it).

Besides employing the devices of rhythm and sound, “Rain Dance” is a sonnet. I didn’t plan it to be a sonnet; it just sort of ended up that way. When I was half or two-thirds done, I realized sonnet form would support the rhythmic aspect of the poem and (at 14 lines) would be the right length. While I’ve written around 20 sonnets, this is the first blank verse sonnet I’ve written. Blank verse refers to a poem that is metered but doesn’t rhyme. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are blank verse, as is Milton’s Paradise Lost. I believe I read that, thanks to these two fellows, blank verse is the most common type of poetry in the English language.

So there you go: strong rhythm, pervasive onomatopoeia, and blank verse make this unusual among my poems. I hope it will be a standout for readers as well. “Rain Dance” will be in my upcoming book, A Song of Glass.

Rain Dance

Dribble drabble splatter drip
the rhythm of the rain resounds
Spatter dripple splat splat plink
a marathon of tiptoes taps
Pitter patter slappin’ pattin’
by my window down the street
Plinkin’ splash splash clappin’ clap
where my mind can see them making 
mystic mists that ribbon dance
Whooshing swishing wishing rushing
through the street lights and the night
until their tails catch me and I’m
carried into hushing flight, 
chasséing through the air like prayer.