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Spadina Literary Review  —  edition 20 page 25

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Sturm und Drang

by Bruce McRae

Rain like Buddha’s sweetened teardrops,
sewing blackened grasses to cursive lawns,
sowing the seeds of July’s distemper.
Flowing rain, shining from godlike pores,
sweating it out, Yahweh’s flood, heat’s reckoning.
Zeus’s spittle sizzling on greasy tarmac,
the minor gods hustling under a chestnut tree.
Dandelions in the full fugue of impending resurrection.

A summer’s rain applying its gentle balm,
a cool hand waving a refreshing veronica.
Or it comes in a mad gush, a black rhino
storming over the hillscape, treetops trembling
in the sturm und drang of apoplectic lamentation,
Thor bringing his hammer down hard and again.