Today's Metaphor is Rain

Maybe that cloud is today’s metaphor for God
Always rising as it is, over the eastern ridge, but somehow never drawing near,
And fanned at its penumbra with burnt smoke 
Fire and clouds and God, all hot with the taste of forest and always changing shape

I’m sure I see the face of some Grace in the shapeless longing to cool the scorched earth with sweet spring rain, though 
As we lay in our tent, struck by the rumble and ruckus of the thunder
In a dark night with no moon to illuminate the steps of any living thing
We waited beneath the tarp for the flicking fingers to begin
And we just went on waiting, until sleep carried us away 

The raindrops never graced us with their presence
And we woke to a dry patch of grass, though, 
Across the meadow, the stream was thicker and more alive with spring
And we tasted second-hand the gift, as grateful bands of animals came and drank
Which became its own picture of mercy, and grand in its way
Though we had wanted water to wet our own hands 
To steady and stay us for the day 

Leaving us the strange shape of how things stand, as we make our way through the thicket of forest
Rain, like mercy, comes in such strange fits and starts
Amid the thirst of so much hungry land
And the hot patches of thirsty ground
Where beauty’s all around 
But the fullness is falling just further down, along the range
As a dark cloud rises, just one ridgeline away