![](https://petrichormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/e_a_d_1.png)
One of the first sermons to make any sense
involved tea-water boiling into steam
in drought. The sound of bubbles,
heat, transformation. Then came
the sermon of rain, that fluid service.
![](https://petrichormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/e_a_d_2.png)
The problem of rain—seeing phenomenon
as beautiful or awful. Either way
each falling drop is full of the flight of birds.
![](https://petrichormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/e_a_d_3.png)
It takes two to take to the sky.
Alighting in shadow hides the light
that flight knows. Words, like myths,
work in wheels: they hover, they plunge.
![](https://petrichormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/e_a_d_4.png)
Though it flows in locks and cascading braids,
water cannot be knotted.
![](https://petrichormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/e_a_d_5.png)
About drawing emblems and conclusions,
here’s the image of a rider: blur lines
indicate swift motion. Between trees,
barbed wire, nearly invisible
in gloaming light, suggests its own moral.