Wooooo!!!
So I just got back (dripping from head to toe, and wearing a cotton tee-shirt as good as a sponge) from my restoration work in the area by the trailhead to Wildflower Hollow.
I’ll admit it, I’m like a giddy chickaree (think: tiny squirrels) when it comes to rainstorms.
Now, in hindsight, I think the black-capped chickadees were giving me a warning as they twittered nervously on the bigleaf maple branch nearby.
Gathering up the last coils of ivy, under a young, mossy Oregon ash, I thought I felt a spider dropping in my hair. Three seconds later, I was in a downpour.
There is something incredibly beautiful about seeing a wet wheelbarrow.
Nothing is quite like a rainy day.
When the sky is damp and gray,
And gold has left the zephyrs’ dream,
All the earth is decked in gayer hue,
And all the grass takes on a brighter green.
There is no life that does not burst in life,
Wheat busses daisies by the farmer’s scythe,
The sparrow on the scarecrow flutes its fife,
The fox ascends the caverns of its den
To lick the raindrops off its auburn head.
I always blithely twirl my body round,
And hear the puerile pattering resound,
For as I’m showered by the high cascades
My inhibitions and my worries fade,
And purified I spread my arms and bathe.
The woods exude a rhythm never static,
Produced in harmony of dead and animate.
The trickling water off the drooping blades,
The saplings of the Douglas-fir who creak,
And infant ferns unfurled in mossy glades,
While butterflies splash in pools and trickling chutes.
With our footsteps muffling the deluge,
We roamed our playhouse hidden in the copse,
Pretended we were mutineers on a ship,
Jumped plank into the puddles by our log,
But in the thicket far we never roamed,
And at the twilight’s pink we raced to home,
Where crystals hung like garlands off our cabin,
And frosted windows wore a rimy shell,
So past the plow we gamboled to our haven.
The hearth was always lit when we arrived,
Stoked by the kindling chopped in gales outside,
My mother’s joy which leaped high with the fire,
Her smile wrapping us in her embrace,
Enraptured by our chirping crickets’ choir.
This mirth was unmatched by the summer sun,
For when the light outside by clouds was shunned,
Inside our shivers tended and suppressed
Our happiness grew greater in our minds
For dry clothes and a warm bed welcoming rest.
As we were tucked in by our father’s hands,
And our sweet sister sung soft lullabies,
We rubbed the window by the tableside
And in the crooning coalesced with storm
Looked out to see the powdery swirls in flight.
In ages hence we’ll look back on these days,
Those hours when the heavens dimly fade,
Then settle in our dark and muddy beds,
Release our lids into a final sleep,
And listen to the raindrops o’er our heads.
