ELIZABETH SMITHER

 

Midnight rain

 
The room is black. Above the roof 
suddenly a stream of rain falls 
columnar, not shared with many houses. 
 
All night while we sleep individual things 
are going on: gifts of cylindrical rain 
a high wave reaching a particular shore. 
 
In the garden there is individual hunting. 
No pain can be attributed, passed on 
but like the rain in the cylinder it is targeted. 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Smither’s most recent collections of poetry are Red Shoes (Te Mata Poet Laureate 3) and A Question of Gravity; Selected Poems(Arc Publications, 2004). Her new novel, Different Kinds of Pleasure, will be published by Penguin in May 2006.

 

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