Will rain fall we don’t know
only a few drops seem willing to answer.

High clouds the hulls of unseen ships
parked their dented blue enamel over our heads

each rib of cloud an arched gunnel
longer than the highway we drove on

the family car no larger beneath
than a splinter of steel. Will it rain we don’t know

why this dark lowering its metal around us
brightens suddenly the veins of leaves almost

lifting into air. Ten years old from the passenger seat
I watch fields darkening low trunks and leaves

rinsed in a chemical glow as my mother
explains Purkinje Shift the loss of light the eye

finding brightness in the lowering storm. Will it rain
we’re not sure are there even ships above those hulls

can we ever know their rigging how their sails fill
with the breath of the dead? As she

who has long been a passenger on that voyage
continues to coast down the same highway

across years she names what I cannot each tree
glowing in the encroaching dark each leaf

a memory lifting in silence to speak to me—
maple tulip hemlock cypress ash.