Rain

[berkeleyfarm]

It is raining in California, a straight rain
Cleaning the heavy oranges on the bough,
Filling the gardens till the gardens flow,
Shining the olives, tiling the gleaming tile,
Waxing the dark camellia leaves more green,
Flooding the daylong valleys like the Nile.
Karl Shapiro, "California Winter

Comments

[themagdalen]

I know this only from Joan Didion quoting it in The White Album.

[berkeleyfarm]

That is where I initially got it, before I studied in the department that Shapiro taught in, which was also in the Big Valley ;). I wasn't one of his students, but I have always loved that poem.