Summer Rain - Aug 20 2021

 

Summer Rain

Aug 20 2021

A rainy day,

and I look out

through trickles of water

dribbling down the pane.

I watch

as they descend in jagged lines

no two alike.

Most disappear over the edge,

some merge, and coalesce.

While the rest run dry

their journey done.

Outside

there is nothing to see but dark.

The windows have all steamed up,

and a ghostly reflection of me

hovers in the glass.

I open one a crack,

letting in

the sweetness of evening air,

the mineral smell

of rain on parched soil.

A gust of wind

and a tree brushes the house,

wet leaves

slapping against the wall.

And on the roof

the steady patter of rain,

like slow jazz

or soft background music.

I fix on the soothing sound

and feel myself slipping away.

How easy sleep comes

with a gentle summer rain,

cooling the muggy day

soothing frazzled senses.

Pure imagination! Perhaps wishful thinking. Because it has been hot and dry and we're desperate for rain.

There is a thunderstorm in the forecast for later tonight. So not the gentle summer rain imagined in this poem. But any kind of rain would be welcome now.

I like poems that invoke all the senses. Here, sight, smell, temperature, and sound. And I suppose touch, with the tree against the house. Hard to squeeze taste into it!

A poem like this has no presumption. It's not intellectual, philosophical, or political. It doesn't challenge the reader with deep metaphors, ambiguity, clever allusion, or multiple levels of meaning. It's a simple mood poem, meant to evoke the slightly soporific mood of a gentle rain on a summer evening. Descriptive, but with a personal element that I hope gives it heart.