On Tarsus the rains come

once every seventy years;

great monsoons wash the surface clean

and all must be rebuilt.

The Tarsians drown their history

once every seventy years

and start Civilization anew—

all pilgrims, yet again.

On Faline the rains never cease

and homes, stores, churches are built

on great floating barges

that move across the waters.

The Falinites shout their history

from barge to barge, creating cities of listeners

that grow and break apart

according to the strengths of tide and tongue.

On Redline the rains are no more than heavy mists

clouding the surface with thick white fog.

All is hazed, shadow-faces and liquid bodies,

and light prisms into gray rainbows.

The Redliners write their history

with bright neon threads sewn into their clothing

and they walk the streets faceless in the ground-clouds,

living billboards of their own past.

On Eden 3, the rains come

when they are programmed to fall.

We live where we have always lived,

as did our parents and their parents before them.

We write our histories

in endless volumes of erudite criticism

and walk our perfect streets

dreaming of storms . . .