December 8, 2012

Rain is sneaking in, a few drops, and a few more, and now a downpour from the dark sky turning white with all the water falling down.  The angry squirrel I heard earlier is gone now, and there have been no birds, maybe they knew what was coming.  The early morning light was washed with orange and a deep pink; I could not see the sun but am willing to bet if I could it would be a red rising.  The slapping of rain on the hard ground, the rushing sound of it pouring off the roof, the occasional snap of a twig falling, are sounds of the drought being staved off for a little while longer.  It doesn't seem like it will last but whatever we get is welcome.

There has been no thunder or lightning, just rain, and there is not any wind either, a little wind earlier but now the rain falls straight down and except for the twitching of leaves hit by the cataract of water, everything is still.  The coffee is done . . . what smells better than coffee?  I know what Michael would say . . . bacon!

This morning's poem is wet, about a river we all know . . .

The Name of a Fish

If winter is a house then summer is a window

in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river

behind the house and happiness is the name

of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child

who plays the fragrant garden is named Mavis:

her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet

are wet with dreams. The cat who naps

in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer

and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I

spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs

of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom

and the cat walks towards us like a message.

Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden

and watch the white heads blow open

in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river

of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.

Faith Shearin

I have read this poem and read it over again.  There is something quiet and peaceful about it, about all it notices.  It has one of my favorite things in it . . . a window, and the images are like ones from a dream, where you know sorrow but the fish of happiness is what you remember.  I want to be that napping cat with my paws in the sun of summer and my tail in the moonlight of change.  I have plenty of tail and change!  The unborn child reminds me that Winona's baby girl is due to arrive this week, and I dreamed of her the other night, she too was red-haired with the Woody knees and the most startling blue eyes like the deep ocean, that rich turquoise turning navy in the deep, her eyes the color about half way down where you could see a hints of each.  She was picking flowers, black-eyed susans in a huge field of them as far as you could see.  She had a straw hat and a straw basket and was giggling as she moved from flower to flower picking them and piling them up in it.  Her yellow dress was like sunshine and her face dusted with freckles.  She looked happy, happy as only a child who is always loved can look.  I loved seeing her there.   

We may all be learning to fish in the river of sorrow, perhaps swimming in it, but the fish of happiness is there too, in the cat asleep in the sun, in the flowers that bloom and go to seed with the changing seasons, with the children, their feet wet with dreams.  We are spending our years quietly walking up and down our own dusty stairs and looking out the window of every season on a world worth seeing.