Soft

You are that soft strength, my sea anchor--
not plunged into the sand, a sullen sodden rope pulled taught
across a widening gulf between us--no,
you are that gentle weight at my back, moving with me
yet holding me so that I do not drift,
making me more solid through both waves and wind at once,
and I'm always circling back to you.

The strength of rain: a current coursing ever earthward,
more insistent in its flow than any Nile
or Mississippi as they wind and wend their way to sea.
And yet the rain is careful, soft,
tapping tip-toed to the ground small drop by dainty drop.
And how much more does soil love
the rain than any river's flow? How much more strength
than streams does rain endow?
And what but its sweet fall could form the softness of a rainbow?