January Rain (for Holly Stark)

Give us neither silence nor plenitude
   but the soft thrumming
      of the drizzle
upon the plastic roof of this makeshift arbour
Everyone here has bated their breath
   but clasp their hands together
      in remembrance of this time previous:

being ready to receive
      we received nothing
and had to render ourselves as stone
      against disease
            and the year's infant gloom

And now here we are as shivering paupers
   the drizzle on the arbour
      helping us dismember
this pious time, this skeletal time
      when everything happens at once

may we fight to make our judgements kind