my whole life spent learning to fall
the moment of descent approaches
still I shudder
others say it's beautiful
exciting
on the way down
but to touch the earth means to shatter
and I am afraid.
I am pushed
wind gusts at my tiny jelly self
shakes my dream of gray
I notice colors
never there before
free-fall is gentle and slow
below the wind stream
ruddy browns poke skyward to greet me
green and yellow-green await me on the ground
blotches of vibrant color swim
with energy far beyond gray
their breeze combs the grass.
I land in a color-cup
with other pellets of water
and I do not shatter or splatter:
I am re-embraced
into the common pool
whose memory was almost washed away
in the rain
{}
“Desert Rain” appears in Facets of the Poet by Leslie Cohen and was originally published in Determinations Two (published by Outrigger Publishers, Ltd., Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1997). It was translated into Chinese and published side-by-side in Chinese and English in The Chinese Poetry International Quarterly, in May, 2002.
Leslie Cohen was born and raised in New York City. She received her M.A. in Cultural Anthropology and taught at Anchorage Community College (Alaska) for three years. Then she relocated to Los Angeles, where she met her husband, and they moved to Kibbutz Ein Hashofet in 1980.
Leslie now teaches English at Ruppin Academic Center (Israel). She has published numerous book reviews, poems, and short stories for children and adults. Her first full-length book, Trapped Inside the Story (a Holocaust biography) was published in 2007.