What the Vat Waits For, Not Yet Given

The Karvel bares its cracked and patient bed to noon, before the rain has come — I dye by memory of blue, not flood, and wait, before the rain has come.

They named this month for water by a scribe’s old habit, not by any cloud; the Hanging Dew lies thick and gives no drop to drink, before the rain has come.

A woman asks me why my third vat stands still lidded, dry, unfed — I tell her patience is a color too, unmixed as yet, before the rain has come.

My mother taught me never rush a dye that isn’t ready to be true — better a slow blue, honestly still waiting, than a false one hurried, before the rain has come.

The upper reach still gives enough for rinsing, not for steeping deep; I ration what the river spares my reed and call it discipline, before the rain has come.

Some nights I dream the color anyway — a blue no vat of mine has earned — and wake still short of water, richer only in the wanting, before the rain has come.

The almanac says fortnight. The old saying says the harbor knows better than the date; I have learned to trust a thirst that keeps its own good time, before the rain has come.

Let it come slow, then, if it must come slow. Nineteen years has taught this hand that what is emptied out too early never holds a color worth the keeping, before the rain has come.