An Ungrateful Scoffing of Rain

It’s unseemly to be ungrateful.

There’s lots worse places weather wise on this planet.

***

yesterday was one of those days 

that catapults me in alternating hate and hope – 

hate of the heat and humidity, 

hope when the rain comes of a cleansing, 

only to look at the sky with a practiced eye 

declaring to no one but myself, 

yeah, you won’t last long – 

and be right, more’s the pity.

***

Summer segues to fall, autumn

this first day of the officialdom

of change – as if the leaves falling

stop to notice when it’s time –

or not – as if rain is more forthcoming

when summer segues to fall –

as if the false promise becomes more

real in the clean air of the autumnal promise

and so again the rain comes

and still, and yet,

yeah, you won’t last long –

and I am still right.

Just Because I Can’t See You Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t There

The Perseid Meteor Shower will most likely have come and gone this year without the benefit of my eyes having seen it.  

The good news is that it’s raining.

And we are a dry and thirsty land in great need of the rains.

The other news (it’s not bad news, really) is that the cloud cover means I cannot go lay on the warm August sidewalk in front of my house in the wee hours wrapped in my sleeping bag and watch the night sky yield forth its fruit.

But that’s okay – it’s happening whether I see it or not.

And other folk are getting to see it, and maybe they’re laying on their sidewalks wrapped in sleeping bags too.  I hope so.

It’s a great way to watch the night pass by.

Just because I cannot see you doesn’t mean you aren’t there.

That’s a good thing to remember about a whole host of things, I think.

Let There Be Water

My imagining of God's imagining in creating this thing we call water:

Water, said the Creator.  Now that will take some time.  I think I’ll make it solid, liquid, gas, a trinity of a thing.  It will be separate and distinct but when it comes together, it will be a unity of one-ness that no one can distinguish one drop (that’s what I’ll call each speck of it) from another.  

And ice – what a powerful, beautiful, wondrous thing that will be.  I think I’ll capstone this planet thing with ice.  But in between there shall be oceans and oceans of this, my most amazing creation of all.  From it shall come all life.  Water, rather than dust, shall be the evidence of my lasting creativity.

And then there shall be rains – not one, but many.  Soft sprinkles, so light, so delicate a touch that they shall barely notice it.  And plenishing rains that shall bring forth the greening of things.  And rains mixed with wind that make a soul bitter when it forgets the deep things that have need of the rains too.  And drops thrown so forcefully from the heavens they bounce and bounce again when they meet with solids.  And monsoons and typhoons and spring rains and sheets and drizzles and dreich drenching droplets-of-it-filled days of nothing but rain and freezing rains and waters that hang in the sky deciding what they will be – some pouring rains, some fog – and torrential rains and phantom rains and cleansing rains – yes, rain shall be my masterpiece.

And with the rains, they shall know thirst.  That shall be their great mystery, the thing once unlocked that makes it all clear.  Oh, you, my creatures.  You are not earth.  Of the earth, but not the earth, you were made unlike the trees, for you were made to move, with the winds and the waters.  Planting was not intended for you.  I already planted my garden and you were not it.  You are the seed on the wind.  Trust the wind to take you where you need go and the waters will find you and you them.  Hold loosely the ground beneath your feet.  Go where the waters flow.  You knew this once.  Even I am not sure when you lost this knowing.  May the rains bring it back to you.

Rain

Rain . . . a layered thing
peeling back one drop
at a time that which
remains otherwise
hidden – the undersides
of leaves . . . tree frogs
making a run for it
(who knows why)
across the roads . . .
worms surging out of
the dirt into the water
warmed by the sidewalk’s
sun-baskededness . . . the
rumbling of a world other-
wise unheard in the reverb
of a single clap of thunder . . .

washed away the lies told
to make truth more palatable . . .
the  I will not that hides behind
the I cannot and calling it
kindness cannot stand where
the floodwaters have washed
such things as nonsense away
leaving only real in its wake

as the tree frogs rush to make
it across the great concrete
divide thinking the water their
friend . . . unaware of the rumbling
approach and mistaking the tires
for thunder and all it not well

Flirting Thunder

                                                       

The Thunder flirts,
sending out promises
from the grey sky                                                  
I am coming, love

Photo at FlickrCommons
by D. Sharon Pruitt

and sends raindrops
gentle as soft kisses
on the earth’s dry lips
yearning, eager, for
the caress promise
 – but alas,

Thunder is a fickle fellow
too soon he is off
seeking another love,
another pair of lips
to tease with promises
of rain
and we are left
dry-lipped
and yearning
for more

Rainfall on the Tin Roof

It rained yesterday – the answered-prayer kind of solid, steady and even gentle rain that crops and children adore in equal measure.

As I listen to the sound of each drop on the tin roof where it resonates the loudest – in the back attic bedroom – I am minded of childhood cozy-under-the-blanket and splashing in the puddles times . . . of sprinting as if I could outrun each drop times . . . of water-filled laughing times . . . of quiet-talk lover times . . .

I love the rain – each has it’s own personality.  I think of  Singin' in the Rain, where the rain is a character in the dance.

But most of all, I thank God for these rains, these life-giving to dry and thirsty land rains.