Catalog of a Rainy Day in December

i awake in a mound of cotton
quilt and brain tied in
in a fabric knot
my mouth dry and ascerbic
and the sound of raindrops
beating the tile roof
droplets converging into
one sound, one contiguous thought
i am leaving soon
there is no turning back

the mountains are still standing
but leaves that once covered
branches are now gone
rainwater washes down gutters
and puddles under arches
and dampens my dry eyes as
I sit up to think
but thinking is not an option
when the day is fraught with water
and i with no tears to greet it

the once eternally blue sky
is gray-white and startling
i sit in the cotton void and
listen, surprised by birdsong
and the catalog of nonthought
that forms a large ellipse
in the center of this bed
and i at its edge, as so often
a figment of my own nonthought
disfigured like my blurry photographs

there is no hearth in which to
light a fire and burn away
the aftersense of ruinous dreams
there is no chimney to catch
the rising cottonous smoke of cigarettes
that carries me across boundaries
there is no stove on which
to make espresso, heat the
cereals of human evolution or
warm the chicken soup of the soul

but there is water to
plump the flaking skin
water to fill the crevices
of failure, water flowing
water breaking, water without
rhyme or reason, and if i
had to chose but one element
for food, it would be water
because water is memory
its fluid body rippling in time

what i had then i have now
i need not think about it
let the cotton coverlet
fold again over eyes and lips
let me sleep in this soundfield
fade into nothingness or
into the ridicule of dreams
let this day stand in infamy
when rains flooded the earth
and drowned the foes of god

it is naught for nothing
that melancholy comes
with raindrops