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Two Words for Rain

Nadia Osei

Free verse · Faith · Nature

My mother's language has two words for rain —one for the kind that asks permission,one for the kind that doesn't.

I have only the one word in this language,so I have to say soft rain, hard rain,heavy rain, like I am translatingsomething that was never meant to need it.

I think this is what faith is too:one word doing the work of several,until you meet someone who grew upwith the finer version and realizehow much you have been flatteningjust to be understood.

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Up next · no reading yetWhat My Mother Prayed in the Other LanguageShe prayed in the language I was taught to lose,