.jpg)
(I-Ching, Hexagram 1, Yang--Immersed Dragon)
"Heavy rain is dragon rain," the Chinese say.
It’s not pouring cats and dogs—it’s pouring dragons today.
Gripping the clouds with their black claws,
their tails lash and rumble against the gray sky,
releasing silver-scaled streams.
When I click open my umbrella,
their fiery breath pours lightning down,
burning a ragged hole where
the glistening rain pours through.
My hair streams with rivulets like the dragons’ manes
as they race above me, a fleet of pelting beasts.
O to be a rain dragon, exultant in my power!
Under the cleansing torrents of this wild maelstrom,
I forget being human and its sorrows,
I forget everything but my dragon power--
the power to heal, burst and flood away rigid paradigms.
Heaven is my ocean.
I growl, beat my wings, swerve up past the moon
and join my clan snaking through the heavens.
An aerial flotilla immersed in waves of lizard-green,
glint-gold sunlight, polyp-red coral, lagoon-turquoise,
all glorious in the aquatic sky,
my thunder of dragons!
Lorraine Schein is a New York writer. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, and Mermaids Monthly, and in the anthology, Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath.The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press:www.mayapplepress.com
Cover Image: Hokusai Cover Design: Amanda Bergloff Twitter @AmandaBergloff - Instagram: amandabergloff