Were it not for the rain
 beginning, big drops slapping
 the gravestones, then spreading
 like wounds, or smacking
 the leaves overhead, first
 one, then another, until
 I stand beneath a chorus of mumbling
 and leaves trembling — thus the rain
 marks its passage through time, steadily
 darkening what it touches,
 and makes indistinguishable the moments
 by narration in a monotonous voice —
 were it not for the rain I’d stay.

I’d lean against this tree, and admire the beauty
 of the weeping girls, the marble
 twins who kneel together above a grave,
 their white backs bent
 in grief, their draped clothing conforming
 here and there to the curve
 of a breast, a hip, a thigh, while live
 roses lie in their laps.

 There have been times when I
 was the one on the left,
 hands folded between her knees,
 withdrawn, almost inconsolable,
 and times I was the other,
 who embraces her sister, kisses her
 on the round shoulder.
 At any time, both
 live in me
 like sister branches of one tree,

 the comforter and the comforted.
 I am the father who comforts
 his son, and I am the son
 who returns in later years to give succor
 to his father. I am the one
 who walks among the dead,
 and the one who waits
 at home with warm bread and milk,
 the way, I know, someone waits for me.

 I recall an afternoon
 we lay together, she
 curled sideways and atop me, my body
 cradling hers, which had been growing
 round with our second son.
 Lying that way,
 her full hip fit
 so perfectly
 between my hip bones,
 and with a gravity not unlike desire,
 it conjured sadness
 in my loins, almost pity.

 O weepers, stone
 girls weeping stone tears,
 will you never recover?
 Were it not for the rain, I’d linger
 and maybe I’d weep.
 But I’ll do neither today, while someone
 waits for me, and the rain
 touches me, touches us
 over and over, changes each of us,
 shoulders and lips, roses and stones,
 my love and the world,
 all things which fit well.

from Rose. Published by BOA Editions. Copyright © 1993 by Li-Young Lee.

This is a poem from Lee’s collection Rose, which he published after the death of his father. Many of my favorites of his are bound in this book!  If you like him, read “Dreaming of Hair,” which can be found embedded in this post on my blog.

What in this poem speaks to you?  The statue? The one waiting for him? What about the rain that changes all things?  All things which fit well?