Category: rain

Cloudy with Sun Breaks

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When it snows, he stands
at the back door or wanders
around the house to each
window in turn and
watches the weather
like a lover. O farm boy,
I waited years
for you to look at me
that way. Now we’re old
enough to stop waiting
for random looks or touches
or words, so I find myself
watching you watching
the weather, and we wait
together to discover
whatever the sky might bring.
~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”

My farm boy does still look at me that way,
wondering if today will bring
frost,
a wind storm,
maybe fog or mist,
a scorcher,
or a deluge.

I reassure him as best I can,
because he knows me so well
in our many years together:

today, like most other days,
I predict I will be partly cloudy
with a chance of showers,
and as always, occasional sun breaks.

Grace Unmerited

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Find a quiet rain.  Then a green spruce tree.  You will notice that nearly every needle has been decorated with a tiny raindrop ornament.  Look closely inside the drop and there you are. In color. Upside down. Raindrops have been collecting snapshots since objects and people were placed, to their surprise, here and there on earth.

…even if we are only on display for a moment in a water drop as it clings to a pine needle, it is expected that we be on our best behavior, hair combed, jacket buttoned, no vulgar language.  Smiling is not necessary, but a pleasant attitude is helpful, and would be, I think, appreciated.
~Tom Hennen from “Outdoor Photos”

… We are, as we have always been, dangerous creatures, the enemies of our own happiness. But the only help we have ever found for this, the only melioration, is in mutual reverence.

God’s grace comes to us unmerited, the theologians say. But the grace we could extend to one another we consider it best to withhold in very many cases, presumptively, or in the absence of what we consider true or sufficient merit (we being more particular than God), or because few gracious acts, if they really deserve the name, would stand up to a cost-benefit analysis. 

This is not the consequence of a new atheism, or a systemic materialism that afflicts our age more than others. It is good old human meanness, which finds its terms and pretexts in every age. The best argument against human grandeur is the meagerness of our response to it, paradoxically enough.

And yet, the beautiful persists, and so do eloquence and depth of thought, and they belong to all of us because they are the most pregnant evidence we can have of what is possible in us.
~ Marilynne Robinson from “What Are We Doing Here?”

Grace rains down on us, often as a gentle shower, but sometimes in a torrential downpour.

I prefer quiet drizzle, clinging as droplets which reflect me as an earth-bound image of God.

Often, when I look at my upside-down image in a hanging drop, I feel downright unimpressive, even grouchy about getting wet. There I am, captured in a transparent selfie, about to fall to the ground and disappear forever.

Yet there are times when my image actually looks and feels presentable – maybe even a little beautiful – inside that drop of grace water.

God creates us pregnant with possibility. It is up to me to water the world with the love He bestows as unmerited grace. He can be so gentle and quiet, but I must be prepared for the deluge that sweeps me off my feet.

A Fading Rainbow of Hues

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Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,
these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected
behind the blossom clusters in which blue
is not so much displayed as it’s reflected;

They do reflect it imprecise and teary,
as though they’d rather have it go away,
and just like faded, once blue stationery,
they’re tinged with yellow, violet and gray;

As in an often laundered children’s smock,
cast off, its usefulness now all but over,
one senses running down a small life’s clock.

Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,
and in among these clusters one discovers
a tender blue rejoicing in the green.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Blue Hydrangea” Translation by Bernhard Frank

… I’m tethered, and devoted
to your raw and lonely bloom

my lavish need to drink
your world of crowded cups to fill.
~Tara Bray “hydrangea” from Image Journal

Dwelling within a mosaic of dying colors,
these petals fold and collapse
under the weight of the sky’s tears.

This hydrangea bears a rainbow of hues,
once-vibrant promises of blue
now fading to rusts and grays.

I know what this is like:
the running out of the clock,
feeling the limits of vitality.

Withering and drying,
I’m drawn, thirsty for the beauty,
to this waning artist’s palette.

To quench my thirst:
from an open cup, an invitation,
an everlasting visual sacrament.

Through Empty Branches, Sky Remains

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You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. 

Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from “Onto a Vast Plain”

I feel autumn rain
Trying to explain something
I do not want to know.
~Richard Wright “Haiku”

I know what this heavy autumn rainfall is trying to tell me –

Be buffed smooth by the winds, and lose your sharp edges
Be restored after too many hot weeks of drought and dust
Be humbled walking through mud and slosh and slick soppiness
Be grateful for this newly opened landscape as trees shed leaves
Be aware that sadness has its place this time of year, seeking solace
Be balm to ones who are lonely and hunger for encouragement
Be ready to remain still, listen, and content with what comes each day.

Singing in the Leaves

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Now constantly there is the sound,
quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
Loud — landmark — now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.
~Wendell Berry “October 10” from New Collected Poems.

If I were a color, I would be green, turning to gold,
turning to bronze, turning to dust.
If I were a sound, I would patter like raindrops and children’s feet.
If I were a smell, I would be dry earth soaking up a shower.
If I were a touch, I would be a leaf landing softly.
If I were a taste, I would be a bit sweet and a bit sour.
If I were a season, I would be the wistful goodbye hug of autumn.
But I am none of these, being enough for now.
Singing in the leaves,
I will come rejoicing,
Singing in the leaves.

This Estranging Season

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Lord, the time has come. The summer has been so long.
Lay your shadows over the sundials
and let loose the wind over the fields.

Order the last fruits to fully ripen;
give them two more days of southern sun,
urge them to perfection and speed
the last sweetness into the laden vine.

Those who have no house, will not build one now.
Those who are alone will long remain so,
they will rise, and read, and write long letters
and through the avenues go here and there
restlessly wandering, with the leaves drifting down.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Herbsttag” English translation by Paul Archer from 1902 in the collection Das Buch der Bilder.

First hints of our condition manifest:
Spite in the wind, mist-gauze across the moon,
Light chill, the spider’s filaments, blanched grass,
And two days as warm as the south change nothing at all.
A morning comes when you know this cannot end well.
Soon it will be no time for gathering in gardens
All too soon, my dears, it will be the weather
For Brahms quintets, for leaves drifting triste past the windows
Of those in their rooms alone for the duration,
For whom this is no time to build. Those now alone
Are going to remain so through this estranging season
Of reading, of writing emails as detailed as letters,
Of watching dry leaves grow sodden on empty pavements.
Rilke said this in lines that I last read in Edinburgh
With my most beautiful aunt in her later age
When, many things gone, she remembered those verse in German.
~Peter Davidson “September Castles”

Enter autumn as you would 
a closing door. Quickly, 
cautiously. Look for something inside 
that promises color, but be wary 
of its cast — a desolate reflection, 
an indelible tint.
~Pamela Steed Hill  “September Pitch”

Summer has packed up, and moved on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder. Cooling winds have carried in darkening clouds. I gaze upward to see and smell the change.  Rain has fallen, long overdue, yet there is temptation to bargain for a little more time.  Though we needed this good drenching, there are still potatoes to pull from the ground, apples and pears to pick, tomatoes not yet ripened, corn cobs too skinny to pick. 

I’m just not ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.

The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes, the inevitable mud and mold.  There is no negotiation possible. I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.

So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer left off. Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for an exhilarating display of a delicious palette of hues.

Lord, the time has come. The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.


Blossoming with Loss

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I let her garden go.
let it go, let it go
How can I watch the hummingbird
Hover to sip
With its beak’s tip
The purple bee balm—whirring as we heard
It years ago?
The weeds rise rank and thick
let it go, let it go
Where annuals grew and burdock grows,
Where standing she
At once could see
The peony, the lily, and the rose
Rise over brick
She’d laid in patterns. Moss
    let it go, let it go
Turns the bricks green, softening them
By the gray rocks
Where hollyhocks
That lofted while she lived, stem by tall stem,
Blossom with loss.
~Donald Hall, “Her Garden” from White Apples and the Taste of Stone

photo by Josh Scholten

As fall now brings gray mornings
heavy with clouds
and tear-streaked windows,
I pause, melancholy
at the passage of time.

Whether to grieve over
another hour passed
another breath exhaled
another broken heart beat

Or to climb my way
out of deepless dolor
by starting the work of
planting next spring’s garden

It takes sweat
and dirty hands
and yes,
tears from heaven
to make it flourish,
but even so
– just maybe –
my memories
so carefully planted like seeds
might blossom fully
from the soil of loss.

Sweet and Sour

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In Summer, in a burst of summertime
Following falls and falls of rain,
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime…
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Cheery Beggar”

What I wanted
wasn’t to let in the wetness.
That can be mopped.

Nor the cold.
There are blankets.

What I wanted was
the siren, the thunder, the neighbor,
the fireworks, the dog’s bark.

Which of them didn’t matter?

Yes, this world is perfect,
all things as they are.

But I wanted
not to be
the one sleeping soundly, on a soft pillow,
clean sheets untroubled,
dreaming there still might be time,

while this everywhere crying
~Jane Hirshfield “I Open the Window” from The Asking

Sweet and sour extends far beyond a Chinese menu; it is the air we breathe.  Dichotomy is in our life and times – the bittersweet of simple pleasures laced with twinges and tears.

I am but a cheery beggar in this world, desiring to hang tight to the overwhelming sweetness of each glorious moment:

the startling late summer sunrise,
the renewed green coming through the dead of spent fields,
the warm hug of a compassionate word,
a house filled with love and laughter.

But as beggars aren’t choosers, I can’t only have sweet alone;
I must endure the sour that comes as part of the package —

the deepening dark of a sleepless and restless night,
the muddy muck that comes after endless rain,
the sting of a biting critique,
the emptiness when younger ones head home.

So I slog through sour to revel some day in sweet. 

Months of manure-permeated air is overcome one miraculous morning by the unexpected and undeserved fragrance of apple blossoms, so sweet, so pure, so full of promise of the wholesome fruit to come.

The manure makes the sweet sweeter months later, long after the stench is gone.

And I breathe in deeply now, content and grateful for this moment of grace and bliss, wanting to hold it in the depths of my lungs forever, its mercy overwhelming the power of sour.

Awaiting a Time Less Bold

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My mother, who hates thunder storms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,

And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can’t confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear:
An autumn more appropriate.
~Philip Larkin “Mother, Summer, I” from Collected Poems.

I am summer-born. Like almost anyone else who lives and breathes, I’m also summer-loving. But this … this has simply been too much cheerful weather all at once. Stretches of weeks with no gray skies can start to become an uneasy expectation, as if we’re somehow owed sunny days.

I too hold up each summer day and shake it suspiciously, wondering if dark clouds or angry yellow jackets and wasps may be hiding inside. I scan the skies for the potential promise of precipitation, sniffing the air for a hint of moisture. When an occasional leaf lets go and drifts to the ground, I celebrate it as a preview of the upcoming autumn shattering of trees.

When the pressures of summer become too much for people like me, we enter warm weather mental hibernation, too overwhelmed by the multitude of options and opportunities and fresh produce and,
let’s face it, … pleasure and perfect happiness.

I can’t wait for the weather to break. I can’t wait for autumn, followed by a dreary winter, when I can once again start wistfully longing …
for summer.

Out of a Misty Dream

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They are not long,
The weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long,
The days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
~Ernest Dowson “They are not long…”
“Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam”
(Our brief sum of life forbids us to embark upon a protracted hope)

photo by Joel DeWaard


When I consider the bittersweet brevity of life,
I don’t think how much I will miss wine and roses.
Eventually, when I pass through the gate,
it will be other loves that determine my path
into the misty night:

My husband’s kind eyes and gentle hands
Hugs and snuggles with grandkids
Worship and prayer and potlucks with church family
Just-baked bread and dark chocolate
The smell and sound of long-awaited rain
Ponies and puppies
Scent of sweetpeas and taste of green peas in the pod
Tunes of bouncy bluegrass and familiar folk songs
Birdsong in the morning and frog chorus at night
Wistful sunsets, and more so, welcoming sunrises

and ever so much more…

We are called forth from here to a hope beyond imagining.
This is only a taste.

photo by Josh Scholten