Tag Archives: poem about rain

Biography of a Rain Puddle

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Biography of a Rain Puddle

A snowflake fell upon my nose.
I don’t know why it missed my clothes,
because, of course, it soon unfroze.

It dripped onto a snowbank where
exposed to colder space and air
as nippy as a Frigidaire,
it froze to crystal, I suppose.

When sun came out to warm the day,
that crystal caught an errant ray
that found the place wherein it lay
and so into the sky it rose.

As a vapor it was reborn
to float upon the sunlit morn.
Unto the heavens it was borne,
in that new state that nature chose.

Months later, it came down again
in a new form, as summer rain,
and winter’s loss was summer’s gain—
a celebration for my toes!

The dVerse prompt today is to write a Zéjel Here is the form:

Then I asked Forgottenman to give me a prompt for the subject and he gave me  Snowflake.

Puddle-Jumping in the Rain: Wordle 515, The Sunday Whirl Aug 22, 2021

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Puddle-Jumping in the Rain

A surge of wind predicts the storm,
blows in the clouds, dispels the warm.

One dry gust sends blinds to swinging
and in the eaves commences singing,

billows drapes, blows open doors,
spreads leaves on counters and on floors.

Soon the rain masks land and sky
as the whole world begins to cry,

fashioning a different role
for each ditch or deep pot hole.

Children scurry home from school
earlier than is the rule

to tug on boots over their feet
and splash through puddles in the street.

These stompings in the driving rain
earn their mothers’ deep disdain.

Mud caked on leggings, jeans and coats,
remnants of ramblings through moats,

oceans, rivers, seas and streams—
all the faux waterways it seems

kids are drawn to in a gale
and moms forbid to no avail.

 

Prompts for the Sunday Whirl Wordle Prompt are: role, surge, fashion, gust, dry, send, children, masks, storm, and counter

Puddle-Jumping

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Puddle-Jumping

Raindrops fall and splat and skitter,
bringing sheen and gloss and glitter.
In my dreams I hear them falling,
try to wake to heed their calling.
When exactly do I know
it’s time to leave my bed and go
outside to splash in rain-filled gutters,
ignoring Grandpa’s warning mutters
that I’ll catch a cold today
if I go outside to play?

He says it’s raining cats and dogs,
but all I find outside are frogs,
proving his idiom a lie
as nothing’s falling from the sky
but rain and blossoms from the tree
that stretches its limbs over me.
I make my way, laborious,
through mud and goo most glorious,
then reach the ditch and wash feet off
in the rushing water trough.

I see Grandpa watching me,
warm and dry and splatter-free.
But then he’s gone, no doubt to see
what’s playing now on the TV.
But, just as it begins to pour,
there’s Grandpa coming out the door!
Barefooted, he jumps in my puddle,
gives my shoulders a warm cuddle,
then repeats the old refrain
that this day is “Right as rain!”


Prompt words today are rain, idiom, skitter, exact, dreams.
Images by Amy Reed and Nicholas Bartos on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Rain

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DSC08898 - Version 2

Rain

Gives an excuse
for that bright orange umbrella
and yellow overshoes
toppled over in the hall closet,
yet it is nighttime and I am old.
I lie under blankets on the sofa,
content with its comforting
rat-a-tat
on the plastic skylight
overhead.

It is a friend knocking
insistently,
calling me out to play.

Six years old,
Imprisoned by summer,
we were given occasionally
the refreshing release
of a hard summer rain.
Bare feet splashing,
we raced dry leaf boats
manned by our imaginations
through the caves of culverts,
down to those ultimate puddles
magnificent in their magnitude.

Sixty years later,
I am caught up in the currents
of that sudden rush downwards
and backwards to
a plastic umbrella
abandoned on the sidewalk
as we opened like  flowers.

Rain
hides tears.
Forces growth.
Cleans up our messes
and provides glorious new ones.
Washes away today
and grows tomorrow.

 

For dVerse Poets: Rain

Fourteen Minute Challenge

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Ever played a word in Scrabble that you didn’t know the meaning of? They acknowledged it as a word but you hadn’t the foggiest? This happened to me a short while ago. The word was siriasis and extra points to you if you know what it means. Quadruple points if you can write a poem making use of it within the next 14 minutes. Here is my 14 minute poem:

 

Rainy Day Reminder

You rue those rainy nights and days
when everything is in a haze
and you cannot go out the door
without whiffing petrichor.
Your hair is soggy, face too ruddy,
raincoat sodden, rain boots muddy.
And suffering from all this damping,
girls are in no mood for vamping.
It’s hard to flirt, I must confess,
when one is such a dripping mess.
But consider now the opposite.
When all day in the sun you sit,
you’ll never find men making passes
at girls who suffer siriasis!

 

(To save you the bother of your looking it up,  siriasis means sunstroke, but it was Bushboy who gave me a hint that led me to investigate the very interesting Australian origins of the word petrichor.)

Bali Afternoon, NaPoWriMo, Apr 2, 2020

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Bali Afternoon

Their shadows float behind them in the afternoon.
Sari-clad, they hurry, ahead of the monsoon
where water sheets in currents, a brutal driving hand
sweeping away the humid heat of this exotic land.

Morning-listless palm trees dance to  gamelan of rain.
The dust of temples washed away, they glisten once again.
Monkeys cower in branches. Dogs slink away to hide.
Only water in the streets. All else has gone inside.

In the shadows of their studios, the batik-makers hold
their wax-pots, streaming rivers of waxy molten gold.
They’ll stem the flood of colors as each gently pours
precise tiny rivers that echo those outdoors.

Shadows in the corners. Great baths of brown and blue,
that when the liquid wax is hard, they’ll dip their cloth into.
Then boil off the wax so they can make rivers anew
A different course determined for each successive hue.

Outside the monsoon blows away and sun comes out again.
As all the voices of the world—the music and the din
start up again and heat comes back to bake the village street.
Mud turns to dust, sweat beads the brows of everyone you meet.

Tomorrow in the afternoon, another hour of rain,
for nature follows her own steps over and again,
like the batik artist, who dips his cloth once more,
dries the cloth, gets out his pot, and once more stars to pour.

Sheltering from the Monsoon, Ubud, Bali, 1996

 

The NaPoWriMo Prompt, Day 2 is to write a poem about a specific place.

Rubber Boots

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Rubber Boots

All the flowers are crying, their petals streaming drops
inherited from rivers flooding over troughs
running up above them, collecting all the streams
that run down the roof top and across the beams.

The rainfall is most copious. It kisses windowpanes
with countless fractured raindrops, each falling where it deigns.
If this were not a school day, I’d run about outside.
This staying inside looking I cannot abide.

I’d rather splash in puddles, damming off the flood
with my rubber rain boots, crushing down the mud
to form private embankments to stem the rushing tide.
What an unfair punishment, this keeping me inside.

Reading, maths and spelling cannot hold my attention,
for I have these new rubber boots I am driven to mention.
I can’t wait ’til recess so I can try them out,
for in rainy weather, splashing’s what it’s about!!!!

 

Prompts today are “a flower cried,” school, crush, copious and kiss.

Photo Credits: Red boots by Rupert Brooks , blue boots by markus Spiske, both on Unsplash, used with permission.

Armistice

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Armistice

The rain is falling drop on drop.
It’s lessened but it doesn’t stop.
No lightning breaks the coal dark sky,
no noise of cars nor passers-by.
I have the night here all alone,
activity stripped to the bone.
No barking dogs, no shouts and cheers
of parties shifting up their gears.
The whole world’s snuggled under covers,
strangers, enemies and lovers.
For this night, disputes delayed.
All our petty gripes allayed.
Rain the perfect arbitrator,
our woes will have to find us later.
 

Rain on Mosaic: NaPoWriMo 2019 Minimalist Poem, Apr 30

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DSC08695

 

Rain on Mosaic

Drop.
Flat.
Rain
is
sad.
Dropping
straight.
Falling
sure.
Into
a
world
of
blue
mosaics.
Glide on smooth.
Slide off easy.
Straight.
Sure.
Rain
is
sad.

Our assignment today was to write a minimalist poem. Last day of NaPoWriMo!!!!

Rainy Season: NaPoWriMo 2019, Apr 25

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DSC00131

Rainy Season

When you walk into my photograph
in your new yellow raincoat,
a stalk of grain is in your hand
and you are plucking at it, shredding it.

I have set the tripod,
pinned the curtain back,
and I am waiting for the turn of light.

Chaff blows in the rain behind your shoulders.
In the wet street I can see you twice.
Steam from the straw pile down the street,
yellow blossoms of the spirea bush—

and still
I do not close the shutter,
for I am waiting for the turn of light.

You woke earlier than usual today,
craving fresh yogurt.
A waxed street that your footsteps
and the wheels of bicycles had marked

did not prompt me
to close the shutter,
for I was waiting for the turn of light.

When you return three hours  later,
your pockets  filled with fresh strawberries,
as though this is the reason
for which you left,

your shadow passes
across my photograph
as I stand waiting for the turn of light.

 


For the NaPoWriMo poem we are to write a poem that:
     Is specific to a season
Uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell)
Includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”)