Without Summer Rain(bows)

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Ayana Tapper

 

I wish these tears fell like summer rain
That calmed heat waves
Watering down yellow chalk meant for hopscotch

Clogged storm drain ripples
Running through halted streets
Indiscernible waves of thunder
Lighting parting the sea of clouds

Water taxis islanding worms
The thick scent of new Earth
The healing summer rain

But this grief yields no cleansing
Red sea parted by bottom lids
Jehovah never flooded this Earth

Without summer rain
There are no rainbows here
Only dried darkness and fears
My endless summer without rain

 

 

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Ayana Tapper is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences. A resident of West Orange, NJ, her majors are in political science and history, but her love for poetry led her to minor in creative writing. She has always found solace in writing as it is the one comfort that she returns to continuously. After a semester of Advanced Poetry with Professor Susan Miller, she watched her writing mature to a place that she had thought was years away.

Professor Miller selected this poem for inclusion in WHR.