'Tropical Lament'

"It rains so long and hard here, I'm remembering
All the rain of my childhood, the pearls
Of hail I'd hold in my hands
After a storm.

This rain isn't going to stop
Until it's made a moat around me,
A grave the shape of a ring.
______________________This rain
Is falling now wherever she is, who survives me;
It's soaking her clothes through to the skin,
Which used to be all fire.

When will it finally drown me?
Sometimes, remembering her hips, I feel afraid.
Sometimes I'm afraid she's gone—
That memory and music are all that's left of her.

But I'm tired of the rain's dark harmony.
I'm tired of everybody telling me:
Lift yourself up, never go down!
Don't we maybe lift ourselves, going down?

And the rain keeps singing on this coast without a sea."

—Joe Bolton