Comes A Soft Rain

The sound of car doors slamming sends the dog to barking

and I arrive in the living room

to see,

out the windows,

a string of vehicles hugging the curb across the street

on this pale gray day

like dormant cars of a train waiting to be loaded.

And toward the end of the line

is that old hearse the color of stainless steel

with the novelty lights shaped like old lanterns pressed into its sides,

and its coachman standing by its hood ornament,

clearing his throat and looking up at the sky.

Old Earl arrives in his purple van

and I shoot him a smile and nod at his back

through the window.

Even if he can’t see me, it’s the gesture that counts.

Old Earl—who reminds me of

a less vaudeville version of my grandfather,

slowly paces himself up the church steps

with plastic-wrapped lilies in his cracked wax hands.

And then

as the first throaty moan of that old organ

grieves that it’s being pressed into service again,

comes a soft rain from the

respectful sky,

a brief fit of weeping to pay its regards

and send stragglers scurrying

into the chapel,

followed by a split in the clouds

like dry skin cracked at the elbow

to let the sun beam down white-hot.

A coincidence clear enough

to cause a circumspect cynic like me

to reexamine all those heavy-handed

meteorological metaphors

used by those taffy-fisted screenwriters
in Hollywood.