These Rain-Soaked Streets I Travel Alone Poem by Abby Koning

These tremulous footsteps
Patter on and on.
Remaining steady
Like the rain
Creating a rhythm of wetness
And of lonely miles traveled.
Yet the rain and the footsteps
Are not completely one.

There will continue to be storms,
Like the one that is even now
Dampening my shoes and
Forming puddles that
My torn shoelaces
Will float upon
Whenever they become untied,
Serving as a parody of exotic snakes
Slithering through the Amazon.

There will always be storms
For the storms are an ever-present force
Broken only by the brief
Periods in which
The sun slants through the clouds
In a glorious moment of relief.
Yet the relief is short-lived,
Destined to fade into gray
Clouds.
And rain will fall
Now and forever

Yet my footsteps are not so.
They are merely a vanishing presence
Leaving an impermanent
Imprint
Upon this earth.

And in the future
My footsteps will be erased
(possibly by the storms which even now
Serve as a familiar companion)
And will not be revived.
For none have walked
Where I am walking now
And none will follow
This trail which, even as I glance behind me now
In sorrow,
Begins to fade.