The Rain Sounds Different Here

The gutter outside my window in Maine was broken

and it created my own mini waterfall that gushed me to sleep

when we weren’t in a drought or under a blanket of snow.

Sometimes I would run to bed as soon as I heard the introductory sprinkles

because coziness like that doesn’t last.

The gutters at college in Syracuse were all well-crafted

and I was too far away from the roof to hear the orchestra.

London offered a consistently damp haze that made me a little bit sad.

There wasn’t much sound at all.

In New York City, the whooshing of vehicles on the slicked-back pavement

was broken up by impatient horns and pothole splashes.

The skies in Los Angeles let enough drops escape

to remind you to go to the carwash, and not much more.

It’s been 9 years and 4 cities since I lived in Maine,

and as long as the rain still falls, that house is still Home.