Rain Of Colors And Flowers Poem by Abraham Sutzkever

I

Rains fall,
Serpentine, stalk-like —
Hordes of wet winds gallop over the earth,
Lightning,
Etching
Dreams unheard-of
Into the air,
Thoughts freshly branching
Green-flowering,
Downpouring,
Torrents

Scared of the noisy valor
In the sky.
Behind them — a flower-bordered evening.
Behind it — a village
Looming up out of the earth,
A road,
A cherry orchard
And
A man.

All this illuminated by the rain.

II

I am the birth of the forest
That wants to sky up from the earth.
You are the sunny herald
Announcing that my thought is heard.
Whence your going and coming
I know, from my lucid words,
Oh, fiery-flodding joy,
Oh, rain of colors and flowers.

I lie in the grassy damp,
Entwined in the thought of your light.
I feel on my body a river
Blending dream and wine.
Your beauty words my palate.
Your fire kindles me like silk.
I beg you: enliven me, cut me
With streams, with colors and flowers.

You, like a starbody pure,
Perceive the speech of my spirit
That whispers trusting to you,
All my blood you release
From its embalmed muteness.
I do not feel how I soar
Upward to you from my rest,
Oh, rain of colors and flowers.

You cloak me in your cape,
You purify my body with your grace.
Forests glimmer gold-green,
Festooned with light and mystery.
I feel: You perceived my prayer,
Gave it flesh of vision, in such hours:
Now I forest up in the air,
Rained in with colors and flowers.