on the way to the cafe today
 there was a human in the pouring rain
 they trudged up a busy bridge
 pushing a blanketed baby carriage
 while the rest of us didn’t watch
 and had rather listened to 
 the pitter-patter of drizzle

 I inhaled deeply for a sigh
 and the faux floral aroma of moisture
 mixed with my laundered sweater
 reminded me of my humid motherland
 and the innumerable other invisibles
 isolated on an exotic archipelago

 the garbage metropolises in
 graveyard squalor and unclean water
 weathered by savage monsoons and sorrow
 had been condemned an abject destiny manifested
 a despair so suffocating it saturates the senses
 that one can’t feel for what’s right in front of them

 then I arrived

 staring outside into bright
 gray overcast and raindrops
 the warmth and bitterness
 of my coffee weighs heavily
 and I am reminded to be
 thankful