The Poetry Show: Storms

 

Enlighten Radio Presents

 

The Raindrop on Your Cheek -- Not Just Weather - or is it?

 

 

The poetry of storms: rain, wind, thunder, lightening. Janet brings some beauties to the show from Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Sara Teasdale, Emily Dickinson, Soran M. H.

Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org

Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case

This Episode Recorded June 5, 2024

A House in Taos

by Langston Hughes

 1901 -- 1967

Rain
Thunder of the Rain God:
And we three
Smitten by beauty.
Thunder of the Rain God:
And we three
Weary, weary.
Thunder of the Rain God:
And you, she and I
Waiting for nothingness.
Do you understand the stillness
Of this house in Taos
Under the thunder of the Rain God?
Sun
That there should be a barren garden
About this house in Taos
Is not so strange,
But that there should be three barren hearts
In this one house in Taos,—
Who carries ugly things to show the sun?
Moon
Did you ask for the beaten brass of the moon?
We can buy lovely things with money,
You, she and I,
Yet you seek,
As though you could keep,
This unbought loveliness of moon.
Wind
Touch our bodies, wind.
Our bodies are seperate, individual things.
Touch our bodies, wind,
But blow quickly
Through the red, white, yellow skins
Of our bodies
To the terrible snarl,
Not mine,
Not yours,
Not hers,
But all one snarl of souls.
Blow quickly, wind,
Before we run back into the windlessness
With our bodies”
Into the windlessness
Of our house in Taos.

From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen.

This poem is in the public domain.

 

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