Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Rain

For whom the bell tolls, on whom the rain pours…This was me today, driving my husband to the dentist early in the morning.
The roads were turned to rivers crazily rushing under the car’s tires, which I had hoped would soon be soaked into the sandy soil of our state. No way. It is still coming down hard like missives of weather.
We do not get lingering rains like the ones up north. Normally…But the weather this year has been anything but normal. This winter we got Northern-ish cold…much too often. Then this rain.
This rain came with sullen clouds and dismal sky.
This rain doesn’t know of the rains of my childhood that gently leaked through the roof tiles and panicked mothers, and out in the yard, soaked us to the bone, making us cackle and jump in puddles. But then, I’m too old to jump in any puddle. I could probably swim on the road, though.
It is now loud and impatient. It screams at me through the hood of my stove top.
This rain doesn’t promise rainbows or pots of gold. Only a greener lawn. Just maybe… if it doesn’t drown it.
This rain is nothing like Emily Dickinson’s “Pretty Rain.”

The Pretty Rain from Those Sweet Eaves by Emily Dickinson

The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves
Her unintending Eyes --
Took her own Heart, including ours,
By innocent Surprise --

The wrestle in her simple Throat
To hold the feeling down
That vanquished her -- defeated Feat --
Was Fervor's sudden Crown –

Then, just maybe, I’m turning into a sour archaic beldam.