Wayne Dodd: "Of Rain and Air"

All day I have been closed up
inside rooms, speaking of trivial
matters. Now at last I have come out
into the night, myself a center

of darkness.
Beneath the clouds the low sky glows
with scattered lights. I can hardly think
this is happening. Here in this bright absence

of day, I feel myself opening out
with contentment.
All around me the soft rain is whispering
of thousands of feet of air

invisible above us.

"Of Rain and Air" by Wayne Dodd, from Sometimes Music Rises: Poems (University of Georgia Press, 1986). Text as published in A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz.

Art credit: Untitled photograph of a man experiencing the "Rain Room" art installation at the Barbican Centre in London, England, by www.news.cn (Xinhua/Wang Lili).