Sunday Morning Rain by Godswill Odeku

Of what use your alienating visit?
On this day sacred from the resurrection,
On this day when good men converge earth
In pristine adoration of the Most Pristine:
Singing, listening, thinking of Calvary.

To what end your investment of showers?
Drenching ironed-starched finery of apparels,
Offspring of Saturday night’s toils,
Tho’ the serpents’ belly bear dead men’s bones:
Floating, posing, glossing vast iniquities.

Souls stacked for salvation,
Who this morning should hear faith-bearing seed,
This morning soak in sin-cleansing fountain,
Arising from sepulchers of caked iniquities,
Hatching righteousness, apotheosizing the Son of man:
All held back by avalanche of drenching cascades.

Were you to ask this or another morning,
My answer would travel the way
Of allowing righteousness to sprout like mushroom,
Or to flow like the rivers or to rain in torrents
And for starched brocades and stretched silk-cotton
To lead each other home.

Then if the earth be wet or roofs relay drum-beats
And gullies line the landscape,
I won’t mind the least
But make shells of fine wool.