Blameless Recognition of Natural Light

By the side of the freeway Black-eyed Susans
adorn rows of harvested corn. Thin straw skins folded
in hollow prayer, behind them their newer growth.
I am thinking of other things as I pass them.

I explain the cloud forms we see to my daughter—
the sideways drift of the nimbus, how those vertical
grey stripes are not clouds but rain falling
on the flat green fields beyond.

She does not see rain as separate from her.
Though we are headed for it, now drenched under
the hoop of its wide skirt, engulfed in a sudden flash
of brightening sky, thunder at our tail.

I am thinking of the corn as I glance into the rearview
mirror to see my son’s eyes looking passed me,
forsaken. Now arrived, I am too late.

I remember my own mother’s gaze, as she sat absently
by the window, the glaze of her stare deflecting the
pastel brightness of the flowering bush beyond, red-brown
capillaries smeared into the yellow of unexplained hate.