What the Welsh and Chinese Have In Common

Fear For Lizards

There is a rain I feel safe with,

the kind wind uses to drape

cedar before first frost, rain

made by a small man very content

with his work. He bends over

a large wooden box. Like wind against the fence,

his flesh folds into it. He pushes back

his hair and he remembers the way

he caught lizards in his youth.

When rain fell, rain like the rain he makes now,

the rain I feel safe with, he'd sit on that

box behind the fence. The post before him

concaved by his father's sledge. In his hand,

crushed mint leaves. Then he would cup

the post top.

Lizards ran into his hands as if

they were entering a new world. Mint,

rain, and cedar post; these were

the seeds of their civilization.

That was before he went to making rain,

a time when reptiles approached humans,

before his hand tired, before lizards

divided their tongue.

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