Ode
for Rain from Death Row
The
rain is a cold, clean prayer,
the
only light I want to see.
I
say it still rains on her
like
it rains on the bars and streets
somewhere
outside the walls.
And
in the rain, she is always twenty,
her
shoes always candy-red Converse,
her
jeans always damped to her thighs,
her
mouth never parted from mine.
She
hasn’t pressed her lips to glass
since
the fire; the ashes are back to ashes, the dust
follows
dust, the spring rain powders her arms
and
evaporates in the stare of the sun.
And
this rain is the only light I want to see.
A
mist that kisses till my socks are sponge,
till
the fire fizzles and baby is back again
cooing
with hot-chocolate-warm hands.
Before
I die I want to stand outside,
birth-naked,
let the Lord soak me.
But
options and pardons are gone.
The
priest only offers a glass
where
my throat wants a holy rain that pours
in
sheets and hoods and lasts for forty days,
till
it floods, and floats my sins away.
Published
in 'Tomorrow, We Will Live Here' from Salt Publishing, 2010
This
poem is based on a quote from Kenny
Ritchie – a dual British-American
citizen who was on Death Row in Ohio following a conviction for
killing a two-year-old in a 1987 arson. In
2006 he had reached the end of a lengthy
appeals process and was quoted in The
Observer saying,
“My dearest wish before I die is to stand outside in Scottish rain
and to feel it soak me.” In 2008, he
accepted a plea bargain which released him from death row and he
returned to the UK.
bio: RYAN VAN WINKLE is a poet, live artist and critic living in Edinburgh, www.ryanvanwinkle.com. His second collection, The Good Dark, won the Saltire Society's 2015 Poetry Book of the Year award. As a member of Highlight Arts he has organized festivals and translation workshops in Syria, Pakistan and Iraq. Recently, they have been working on a new play about the death penalty in Pakistan. This project has been commissioned by the Justice Project Pakistan and is in partnership with Ajoka Theatre and Complicite. To learn more about their JPP's human rights work please visit: www.jpp.org.pk.
