It was raining hard in Ithaca on Friday morning, and I thought it might be fun to ask people to send me poems or stories about the rain. I put out a "call" on Facebook and sent some e-mail invitations, curious to see what I would receive. I set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Now here it is: Sunday. 5:05 p.m. And I have some things to share with you, poems and stories. And the sun is shining. Everything seems to have fallen delightfully into place.
-Zee
Annemarie Zwack
raindrops hit the roof
I am warm inside with fire
burning in wood stove
Barbara West
A true story remembered from the mid 1960s:
It had been a stormy rainy day with no joy when a New York City mom picked up her blue-eyed blond-haired four-year-old from preschool. The child's usual chalk-white skin was rosy because of the excitement she was feeling. She instantly told her mother that she had met her twin that day in school.
For three days it continued to rain. Even though the children could not go out to play the girl was the happiest her mother had ever seen her after being at school. All she could talk about was her new friend who looked just like her. She asked her mother if the girl could come over on Saturday to play and have lunch.
Her mother made all of the arrangements. On Saturday morning when the doorbell rang the little girl said "Wait, don't answer the door." She ran and got her yellow rain coat and put it on. Pulling her long straight hair out of her collar she opened the door. There stood her twin, brown eyed, short curly hair, skin as dark as all of the people from her African birthplace.
The two girls stood shoulder to shoulder both declaring they were twins, big smiles above their identical yellow raincoat collars.
Bridgett Perry
Rain, urging grasses to grow, trees to bud.
Rain, making puddles in my driveway, flowing down the spouts.
Rain, nourishing my garlic buried underneath the mulch.
Rain, causing droplets on my window, changing my outlook.
Diana Kreutzer
Forty one years since we last saw each other, two old friends meeting at a Japanese restaurant. In out of the chilling night rain I arrived first to get a table, to be the one doing the greeting since Donna had traveled here to where I live, on a college tour for her daughter.
I sat on the waiting bench aware of the candles on the little table in front of me. Aware, through the window behind me, of rain dropping on puddles in the shiny black parking lot. I sat and waited, watching a large party of very young women with very short dresses maneuvering around unnaturally on their very high heels, and the very young men they were with. I could imagine what these young men waited for, patiently, through the picture taking and through the soon-to-be hibachi dinner, and thereafter.
In walked Donna as I had seen her 41 years ago. How could it be 41 years ago? Her daughter was the image of 17-year-old Donna. Then Donna and the "Oh!" of a poignant moment of recognition, the hug that kept getting tighter until we felt each other crying from the joy and sadness of seeing someone who knew us when we were children, who knew our mothers, who knew our old houses in the old neighborhood. I didn't want to let go. Ever.
For however long the dinner lasted I payed gracious attention to her husband and sincere attention to her daughter, but all I wanted was to talk to Donna, to look straight into her eyes and really see her and be present.
It was so hard to believe that we hadn't just been in the street outside her house jumping rope as Lynn stopped turning her end and yelled, "CAR!" and JoAnn dropped her end while we all walked to the side of the road, and when the car passed we again turned the rope and jumped until it started to rain. Then we all went home.
Tonight, in the rain, Donna and I hugged again, and I could tell it was the same for her, neither one of us wanting to let go, comforting witnesses of our herstory and the common awareness that even though it was not perfect, it was our childhood and there was time forever, then, to be with our now gone mothers and other fleeting pieces of ourselves.
Julia Grace
The Warm Embracing Cold
Dark, black.
Dancing on the benches, skipping on the concrete.
Twirling in the sky.
Hitting the sand, the street, the ocean.
It flies and flies.
When it lands, it lies in my hair and drips down my skin.
I feel it, love it.
It returns that love and turns it into droplets perfectly placed on my eyelids and lashes.
The rain glitters webs and waters violets.
It sprinkles down joy and places it upon clothes and cheers up the misery.
I can dance in it.
I can love it.
It will never leave me lonely.
The rain — it dresses and undresses.
Me.
Melissa Hamilton
When it rains, especially when it rains hard enough for tributaries to develop on the lawn, I recall a hobby I practiced while waiting for the school bus. Staring at clouds was a favorite, followed by chewing on my book bag handles, but once I reached second grade, I felt something higher was calling. I began exploring puddles left from rainstorms, finding them writhing with life. Preventing drowning in a puddle, became a mission, the reason for my wait. Despite red fingers and muddy nails, I often saved a life before the bus pulled up.
Nancy Gabriel
Rain. Of course. We have not seen the sun for more than a teasing moment since she died. How in the name of all that is holy will I ever emerge from this fog that surrounds and inhabits me? One phone call, she’s gone forever and I’ll never again see that radiant smile, hear all those laughs — the delight, the wit, the bawdiness, the cheer-me-up, the affection, the irony, the shrugged what-else-can-we-do-but-laugh?, the don’t-you-just love-New-York-aren’t-we-all-crazy? Mostly the laugh of THERE YOU ARE YOU SWEET THING! Writing helps me see and hear her, and visualizing that greeting hug brings back the Chanel No. 5. She is gone forever, as is, it seems, the sunshine. Must I get out of bed in this rain?
Susan Lesser
Mid-Summer Birthday
It was my birthday and I was going to be 10 ten years old which I figured was the perfect number of years. My birthday falls smack-dab in the middle of summer and in Texas, in the 1950s, you can bet it was plenty hot. We ran fans all day and at night my father swung open the ceiling in the hallway and started up the attic fan which was actually an airplane propeller installed in the attic space. Worse than the heat was the drought.
Texans who had lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s called it a “drouth” and they told us it was worse than anything they had ever seen. It sure didn’t look good — the greens on the golf course were green, but nothing else was. We had water rationing and had to brush our teeth with only a couple of inches of water in a glass. My father struggled to keep his beloved garden going, watering only occasionally and only after the scarlet sunset gave way to stars. Grown-ups talked about crop failures. Mrs. Davis’ brother sold all his cattle and his ranch was for sale. Clear Creek, running right through the center of town, was nothing but a trench lined with dusty stones. In late afternoon, low-flying airplanes salted clouds with dry ice to release the moisture, except there were almost never any clouds. West of us, towns were hiring Native Americans to perform tribal rain dances. Nothing helped.
Nevertheless, I was to have a birthday party. We played Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey and Kitty gave me a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of the Eiffel Tower. The dining room table was set with paper plates and hats and platters of sandwiches cut in fancy shapes. Mum made a side salad with canned pears served cut-side up, each one sporting a toothpick mast and paper sail, small vessels in search of the sea.
Then came the cake, Mum’s perfect sponge cake with a layer of buttery frosting and “Happy Birthday” spelled out with cinnamon Red Hots. I sat at the head of the table because it was my birthday. The candles blazed and I needed to make a wish, a really good wish because now I was ten years old. All at once, I knew exactly what to wish for. I took a deep breath and leaned toward the candles. I blew as hard as I could and I wished for rain.
We were just finishing our cake when from the southwest rumbled the deep growl of thunder. Wind rushed through the doors and blew the paper plates off the table. The rain splashed down, bouncing off the parched earth. Lightning slashed through the clouds and the smell of ozone oozed inside.
I cried. I cried very hard, with joy because my wish had come true, but mostly because I was terrified of my own sense of power. It was not going to be easy being ten years old.
Tina Wright
stuck in his stall the horse
looks wild-eyed blaming me
for the endless rain
people with wet feet
are not making fun of my
rubber boots today
the oats are planted.
the farmer waking to rain
sleeps even better
Zee Zahava
Rainy Day Moon
I found you at last —
inside this mud puddle
