By: Deanna Cuadra
View all Deanna Cuadra's works
Rain should be warm.
Not hot
Or cold
But warm.
Like when a mother embraces her daughter,
concealing her from her father’s scalding eyes,
Or like when a father whispers a fairytale
before the bundled up daughter’s budding ears.
Rain should be warm.
Like a friend’s old joke and sunflowered eyes—
two girls racing yellow hula hoops alongside each other
and a silver-haired teacher planted irises in the earth.
It should be like that time green chrysanthemums stepped forward,
and encompassed the girl so not a single soul
would see the snow falling from her face
and the echoes of how she’s been scorched and iced.
Rain should be warm,
like those moments their laughter wrapped around the girl,
the melody carrying the most wondrous cracks!
like their smiles that threatened to bring a burning behind the eyes
at the thought of final glances and quivering goodbyes.
Rain is warm,
according to every time they took her hand
and swung it for no reason at all,
Then happily wished her all the spring in the fall.
Tears are warm
like when the girl realized all those hot and cold moments
could not rain out the warm ones,
and some fairy tale her father once told her
about the future he didn’t have
could come home as a college acceptance letter—
so summer sprang from her eyes.
Yes.
Rain should be warm.
The sun-blushed kind,
where blues and greens fall hopelessly in love,
where those hugs, laughs, and smiles
Stay a while.
Please, let the rain be warm
for all the times the world is not.
Let it be warm.
From here…To there…
From the girl…To the Woman…
Because if the rain is warm,
we will not need the sun to feel it.
Because of them,
She did not need the light to see it.
Rain should be warm.