Let the rain come

She stood there, decked out in the finest robes of righteousness,
A life immaculate,
Clean, pure, untouched,
Brow worn high,
nary a wrinkle
Scarcely a furrow,
And waited, in the rain, for the bus to come by.
She spoke softly in a confident tone
That spoke of riches in the winds
Of ethereal beauty
Heavenly gifts
All encased in the gilt fabric of conviction from the Other-world
Where one of her feet was firmly planted always.
Within this spirit of moral levity
She floated without imprint,
Leaving no history to besmirch her name.

The other bystanders wore galoshes and raincoats,
Mud-speckled boots,
Umbrellas with bent spokes
And rattled to each other their earthly secrets
Their stories of “who’s who and what’s what so there,”
And bore the scars and weathered lines of a lifetime of jostling for space,
And left behind progeny of memories and mixed emotions
That will course through the veins for the world
Forever after,
Tracing complex patterns of shimmering iniquity and gossamer goodness.

The bus picks them all up without judgement.