The Rain

/ Issue 14.3 /

1.

When the rain stops the porch is a blankness.
The yard is, the trees, where I know them to be—.

2.

The power’s been out in the village all night.
And one plane puttering above in the darkness.

3.

The darkness grows lengthened by a running light.
To know such solitude as this. To know the extent

4.

of sorrow not by sorrow but the memory of joy.
The night’s endless darkness. I hear its voice.

David Baker

David Baker

David Baker’s books of poetry include Whale Fall (W. W. Norton, forthcoming in 2022), Swift: New and Selected Poems, (2019), and Never-Ending Birds (2009), which won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. His six books of prose include Seek After: Essays on Modern Lyric Poets (2018) and Show Me Your Environment (2014). His individual poems and essays appear lately in such journals as American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Yale Review.He lives in Granville, Ohio.
David Baker

Also by David Baker (see all)

Author: David Baker

David Baker’s books of poetry include Whale Fall (W. W. Norton, forthcoming in 2022), Swift: New and Selected Poems, (2019), and Never-Ending Birds (2009), which won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. His six books of prose include Seek After: Essays on Modern Lyric Poets (2018) and Show Me Your Environment (2014). His individual poems and essays appear lately in such journals as American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Yale Review. He lives in Granville, Ohio.