1 Poem by Jeffery Allen Tobin

Quiet After Rain

Dawn breathes with the scent of rain-washed earth,
Streets shimmer under halogen halos,
Reflections ripple in the transient puddles
like memories too gentle to grasp.

A city wakes—
timid, slow, with the tender ache
of trees in bloom, their petals
the fragile pink of a new scar.

There’s a rhythm to the waking world,
a poem in the pulse
of wingbeats against quiet skies,
a promise whispered by the breeze
through high-rise canyons and coffee steam.

I walk where shadows stretch and yawn,
treading the line between asphalt veins
and the soft, muddy heart of the park
where old men tell stories to sparrows.

Today writes itself
with the ink of light, spilled gold
on the canvas of yesterday’s storms,
each moment a word, a breath, a chance.

In the quiet after rain,
life insists, persists, resists—
a testament, perhaps,
to the fragile, enduring human heart.


Bionote

Jeffery Allen Tobin is a political scientist and researcher based in South Florida. His extensive body of work primarily explores U.S. foreign policy, democracy, national security, and migration. Currently affiliated with Florida International University, he contributes to both the academic community and policymaking sphere. He has been writing poetry and prose for more than 30 years.