Spring Rain and Poetry

A huge, gusty rain storm swept us up into its fervor during the night; 2:30 a.m., and I was up, pacing from window to window, hoping that the trees, the deck furniture, and all else would still be there in the daylight. My blue and white star-lights were juggling crazily with each gust, but they stay lit, like a weird carnival in the back yard. 

I never got back to sleep. The creaking and rattling of this old house kept me awake, and the rushing swaths of hard rain hitting windows made me a little nervous. It's pretty clear that this old home, built approximately 1905, has seen a lot of weather. But, like with people, a lot of weathering can wear a body down. 

That all said, I got up at 5:30 because I was not asleep anyhow. I'm stumbling through the morning, bleary and tired, but up anyhow. The rain and wind have settled into "soft rains," the kind that the leafing fruit trees desperately need. Miraculously, not even the pillows on the adirondack chairs I set out in the yard yesterday were moved. I suspect they were so sodden they couldn't move. But nothing has blown away or even out of place. It's like the storm didn't even happen-- but it did. Those cracks and shudders were not fiction.

So, happy Sunday. I'll leave you with this poem that came to my mind, one of my favorites by Sara Teasdale. Without the subtitle, the poem is rather simple and lovely, about spring and rain and growing things, at least until the last couple of stanzas. The subtitle, however, warns us that this poem is a little mournful, wistful, and sad. And true. As it should be.

Take care,

C

There Will Come Soft Rains

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Credit

---

From The Language of Spring, edited by Robert Atwan, published by Beacon Press, 2003.