‘The Second Rain’: A Poem by Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano

The Second Rain

A grandly booming, flashing shower
Comes flying in and promptly starts
To soak the neighborhood an hour.
This done, still rumbling, it departs.

The garden plants, once somnolent,
Are jostled wet awake and clean,
While in long grasses skewed and bent
Droplets shine and the day is green.

There’s no disturbance now. The sky
Is stilled; the land regains its poise,
Soon to be settled down and dry.
Birds flounce with customary noise.

A breeze swings in on deck and lawn.
Above, the maples sway and then,
With day benign and weather gone,
The shaken leaves shed drops again.

Cold water sprinkles on your head
And pelts you mildly as you leap
With comical, reflexive dread
As if you had been roused from sleep.

But please, don’t fear, it’s nothing much,
Just nature’s jest, a second rain—
And barely that—a teasing touch
Of water last released, not pain.

And as you smile, do recognize
How rare it is, fortuitous,
That wordless earth and silent skies
Should treat you to this merry fuss.

Then join the jest, the second rain,
And feel the last drop on your face
To be a balmy summer gain
That wakens vigilance and grace.

The moss is green between the stones
And vivid too the watered grass
Where sunlight plays in shifting tones
On droplets that are soon to pass.

Toward all signs sent or sprung by chance
May you with calm and balance keep
Your mind prepared for happenstance.
Be ready to be roused from sleep.

Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano is a native of Kentucky who for many years has been a bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk of the Theravāda tradition.