poem ----- Donald Gasperson

the memory of rain

what memory makes whole

as if rounded by the thumb

is that comfort at the marrow

a tenderness found  

in the strange bitterness of leaves

littering the graceless spaces

if it were mine alone

the patient rain could fall

and fill all the little silences

now knowing well enough

that each unnecessary season

is full of its own reason

and the inevitability of the past

that nurtures this creative act

begets one immaculate fact

knowing from foreshortened time

that the cleansing power of sentiment

is the power of the mind