Rain Fell from the Raftered Ceiling
Nothing you wrote down could come from a dream.
Then the letter might never arrive.
What travelled had to move through only one world
if you wanted your desire to sink like an arrow.
Even paper.
To imagine how it was
you had to picture something missing.
A dried pond,
or the ironstone on the shore
after the heron has flown away.
Your longing for it had to be the movement of a draw knife,
bark shaved off in curled piles.
The knife did best when the bark was still damp.
The heron left before the fall rains came.
Give me dryness for travel, dampness
for things held close.
Tell me how you think it was.
The sun lurid and nailed tight against a high bough.
A place that can never be torn down.
How the roads were curved, never lined.
How they kept sight of water.
The sky was hammered down with round pegs
like the kind that were used to hold ships under.
Michael Goodfellow is the author of Meadow Work (Gaspereau Press, 2026).
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