<\/p>\n
This poem by Evelyn Lau was published in the The Malahat Review<\/a><\/em> 171<\/a> (Summer 2010), which was released in September and reprinted here by permission of both the author and the review:<\/p>\n \n Updike Redux<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \n Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2014John Updike, \u201cA Soft Spring Night in Shillington\u201d<\/p>\n ~<\/p>\n \n \n The sound of rain made you happy almost to tears<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here, it\u2019s November again. Lightning in the night,<\/p>\n the neighbor\u2019s coughing through the drywall,<\/p>\n the tinny sounds of late night TV.<\/p>\n I try to remember gratitude, the wonder you felt<\/p>\n as a boy crouched under a wicker chair<\/p>\n on a porch in Shillington, storm showers falling<\/p>\n all around you like a benediction.<\/p>\n Is it possible we never met?<\/p>\n Perhaps your sleeve brushed mine, once,<\/p>\n in the desert where you spent the winter\u2014<\/p>\n among the crowds on the baked streets<\/p>\n of Scottsdale, the avid tourists<\/p>\n and fake cowboys, you a tall man with a hawk nose,<\/p>\n skin red from psoriasis and sun.<\/p>\n Or perhaps we drove past your house<\/p>\n in the foothills of Tucson on our way back<\/p>\n from the Biosphere, microwave lines of heat<\/p>\n radiating above the road<\/p>\n as we crossed the dry riverbeds<\/p>\n toward the saguaro forest at sunset\u2014<\/p>\n the talcum kiss of the parched air,<\/p>\n lurid watercolours in the sky. No,<\/p>\n this was April, you were in Beverly Farms,<\/p>\n it was the last spring of your life.<\/p>\n Here the soil sizzles, soaking up the downpour<\/p>\n after the Indian summer that lingered<\/p>\n like it would never end. Blue days of bluster<\/p>\n and blown leaves. The tree in the courtyard<\/p>\n a massed bruise, magenta and mauve,<\/p>\n the maples filtering blood through their spun keys.<\/p>\n If it was hard to be happy then, tell me how<\/p>\n to survive the winter. Tell me how<\/p>\n to get to Plow Cemetery, where soft fistfuls<\/p>\n of your ashes were scattered on stone.<\/p>\n Clouds of ashes, the colour of smoke and dust,<\/p>\n Lifting above the land<\/p>\n You loved so much, seeding with rain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This poem by Evelyn Lau was published in the The Malahat Review 171 (Summer 2010), which was released in September and reprinted here by permission of both the author and the review: Updike Redux Rain is grace; rain is the … Continue reading