Rain Song

After Al-Sayyah The radio blares “Dialogue of Souls,” and the woman who hated clouds watches the sky. Where is the sea now? she asks. Where is it from here? What is its name?— this rain on a morning ride to school, winter, my seventh year, my father driving through rain, his eyes fixed on a world of credit and debt. On the radio, devotion to the lifter of harm from those who despair, knower of secrets with the knowledge of certainty. Not even the anguish of those years, the heavy traffic, cold and wind could have touched me. I was certain the palm holding me would be struck again. Chance allows for that and for stars to throb in reachable depths. Filled with grief bordering happiness, I didn’t care if I was safe, whether the storm was over, only that it came, the slash of lightning, the groaning sky, and the storms we made, how rain stripped everything of urgency, how to the lifter of harm rise those who despair.