Rain a Long Time Coming

I arrived before the final showing, Before your heart was erased. When we run the gamut There are rules That cannot be broken. There are spirals in the mind That annoy even the great ones, With pedigrees like tulips. Free at last-- Or so I thought, but All hope of winning the prize is lost. My harmonies plead for mercy. Do you remember your name? I asked. There was no answer. But I knew it was Stephen-- Stephen who paints windows And affixes doors-- Stephen the unhinged. Fiction, he said, is the truth Behind the facts, The wandering of lost sheep Who walk in your dreams. There are those, who in a trance Like frogs, burrow beneath the mud And wait for rain. Rain was a long time coming that year. Everyone knew it would be dry; The almanac said so. The signs were posted everywhere: Seven years of drought, A long waiting to be born.