The Autobiography of Rain

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The poems in Lana Hechtman Ayers' </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Autobiography of Rain</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> explore the healing powers of art and nature in a world that is as rife with grief as it is as ripe with beauty. It is in the most stricken moments that we are most open to beauty and to the concepts of life and the infinite. They're entwined and only as we grow and finally mature is the both-sided coin revealed. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I am the moon's dark side </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Ayers writes as an adult pondering her-and our-place in this world. Once she </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>dreamt of being the horizon </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>and now she implores </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>ask me about the rain. How to drink it in and in and in / and never drown.</em></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>We wonder when our big moment will come as we prepare for epiphanies and actualization but the secret truth that Ayers shares throughout </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Autobiography of Rain</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is that big moments always come small and every moment is available to us. We don't have to wait-</span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Any lit wick // that brightens without / burn suffices</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>. Ayers is hoping that today is the day you realize it so you can look back the next day and remember that you </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>said I love you</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> to our fragile Earth /</span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>said I love you I love you</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>to the universe</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>. Poetry is the answer to every question Ayers ever asked and she implores you to </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>save yourself</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> / </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>in the quiet hours</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> / </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>one kind word at a time</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>.</span></p>