"Primitive Rain"

I wonder what primitive man felt
the first time it rained.
A blue sky turned grey, bruised
and cracked open like a new mind,
a new consciousness of the universe
expressing itself in lush abandon,
with torn shards of cloud, blackened and jagged.
And now this wetness, a spackled blanket of liquid —
how strange, how exhilarating!
 
There must have been a first rain,
after man became conscious of himself:
for it had kissed his face, he’d felt it —
it was for him, for him!
Perhaps he would recognize it
in a moment of stunning awareness:
the ancient understanding of nature
having the same body as man.
For how could the rumble above be anything
other than the beating of his heart?
How could the rain, a broken-beaded necklace
of delicate drops, driven down from heaven,
be anything else, if not the tears
falling down his face?