Tom Montag: "Lecturing My Daughter on Her First Fall Rain"

this then is fall rain.
i spoke of it

in july, telling you
rain has textures,

telling you july
rain drives deep for

dry roots, to fill them,
drives in at warm

angles, softly. i
told you then fall

rain is cold, rough as
wrought iron, sometimes,

bent as rusted nails.
you were content,

though, to wait, to learn
this rain by touch,

to measure your blue
fingers against

the still warm places
between rain-drops

on your surprised face.

"Lecturing My Daughter on Her First Fall Rain" by Tom Montag was first collected in Making Hay & Other Poems (Pentagram Press, 1975) and then again in Middle Ground (Midwestern Writers Publishing House, 1982). Since 1998 the poem has been incorporated into the design of a wall in the second floor east hallway of the Wisconsin Center (originally the Midwest Express Convention Center) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Reprinted here by permission of the poet.

Art credit: Untitled photograph by unnamed blogger at It's for the Baby: Mummy and Baby Blog.