poetry and rain

i am currently reading "Daughters of the Fifth Sun", an anthology of work by Hispanic, female writers and i am now at a section of poetry. it occurred to me that i could never read poetry as i do other genres - biographies or novels that i become so wrapped up in that i "can't put down the book", reading many pages, perhaps hours at a time. for me, to really appreciate the poetry, i can only read one poem at a time, not one right after another. i imagine it might takes weeks, or months, to complete a whole books or an anthology of poetry. for me its like with rain after a drought; if the rain comes down too hard, too quickly and all at once, it rushes away with very little of it actually soaking into the parched earth. a poem for me must be read out aloud, maybe even read over and over several times and then it must just "percolate" in my brain for awhile, just for me to understand, visualize, to absorb it. then and only then can i feel and know it. of course, as with such subjective material as poetry, who knows if i would even come close to knowing what the poet is trying to say! nonetheless, i will read one poem a night during this section of the book and let you know later, which one was my favorite.