THINK, WRITE, COMMUNITY BLOG

RAIN

RAIN

     The Sandman’s tears drop from the heavens, playing notes on different surfaces. The heavy plop, plop of large drops splatter, then the liquid crystal spills with a roar, cleaning the earth and all upon it. Suddenly it gentles to a tap,tap,tap on windows and roofs with a sleepy rhythem.

     I sit trying to concentrate on my work, though, I find I jerk to attention at any sharp noise not associated with the rhythem of the rain. I am being hypnotized to sleep.

     Rain, something we do not consciously think of unless we have too much, or too little. A drought comes. All the wells and streams dry up. The animals are thirsty. We are thirsty.  Crops dry up and die. Earth dries and cracks. We find ourselves living in a bare and desolate land with wind driven clouds of earth blown here and yon. Our eyes hurt as the minute grains hit and stick. Our throats are dry and dusty, and our teeth grind on the grit.

     What is going on? We do not live in the desert. Leaves die and fall from trees in the spring, and summer. Tall old trees die and fall away. The sun burns down on everything.

     People begin to fear. In the country and towns you hear; “We sure need rain. What are we going to do if it doesn’t rain soon?"

     “It will rain,it always does.” someone answers, but is that doubt heard in their voice?

     Then comes the day the clouds gather in the sky, turning smoky black, and white. They roll and tumble while streaks of lighting crackles and snaps. Thunder booms. Rain is coming.

     The black clouds unzip, dropping their load in a deluge. The earth is so dry, we wonder if it will wash away. But we are glad and thankful for a deluge, or a promising sprinkle. Our creeks, ponds, rivers and wells will fill. Grass will grow. Cattle and horses dance in the rain, cleaning the dust from their hides. Life comes back to everything, just in time. We will not die.

     The cloud zipper is stuck open. Rain continues to fall, and fall. Soon everything is overfilled. Creeks and rivers overflow their banks. Pastures are knee deep to the cows in water. Roofs spring leaks, where there were never leaks before. Everything is drowning. The word in the country and the towns; “When will it stop? It’s washing away my place. I can’t plant my garden. It’s too wet.”

     Liquid feast, or dry, hard as rock, earth famine. It seems never to be just right.

     But today, as the sandman’s tears fall on the roof, it is neither extreme. A soft beat, followed by a heavy one, weights on my eyelids like sinkers on a fishing line. Gravity pulls downward until my eyes shut and my body goes in to silken repose, with my head cradled on my folded arms.

     Lightning may flash, and thunder may boom, but I sleep on in the mesmerizing coziness of a wet cocoon

Going Home

GOING HOME

     Hanging heavy and damp, a foggy mist covers the acre of land separating my back porch from the meandering creek at the bottom of the shallow valley.  Blurred trees, draped in gray haze loom darkly as a backdrop for the creek.

     The misty shroud covers the dried bushes, vines and corn stalks of this years wasted garden turning it into a gray wonderland.  The morning is peaceful and beautiful in an eerie way.  Birds awaken and warm up their throats for a musical day.

     I sit on my back porch enjoying a fresh cup of coffee and a morning at home instead of having to rush to work.

    Expectancy fills me, but why?  The hazy sun light and soft, lightly stirring air is not quite right, but I can not identify what is different.  Excited in a quiet, wondering way, I feel like I am becoming a part of the translucent mist.  Light and feathery the wetness invades my skin.  Air, sucked deep into my lungs feels good.

     Contentedly, I sit staring at my now exhausted wonderland garden when a movement at the north end catches my eye, barely.  I squint and look closely to see what the shadow movement had been.  Though astounded at what I see, I feel no fear.  My world fades as I enter the world of yesteryear.

     Soldiers walk through my has-been garden, Civil War soldiers, the Blue and the Gray.  The spaces between the past summer’s vegetable rows widen to form a dirt road big enough for a wagon, horses or a buggy, but the men I see are walking.

     Faintly outlined, both Rebel and Yankee military walk weary and jaded through the soft ground cloud of fog.

     I see them.  Their heads are bowed and their bodies sag from the private Hells each endured through the years of horrible war.

     Toward the north, Blue Coats, limp while the, Men in Gray, stagger south.

     Guilt, sadness and pain keep their eyes cast downward.  Neither side looks at the other, They keep walking.  Sometimes in a steady flow, sometimes in a group. The Blues walk, but more often I see a lonely straggler more tired than the last one, heading steadily southward.  With faded clothing torn and tattered and no shoes on his feet he moves slowly on, the Old South heavy on his shoulders.

     Both sides hold their guns, if they have one, lightly, the same as when they marched grand and proud to join the war.  Marching, shooting and glory now evade their minds replaced by memories of a home place and beloved familiar faces filled with love.

     The Gray head to places that have been and are no more, to houses burned, family members killed and land gone fallow.  What are they thinking on their long slow journey? 

     The men in Blue, victorious in battle, head toward what they remember knowing their homes are probably unchanged.  But they are changed.  Never again will they be the innocent, carefree youths barely past childhood, who left home to win the war.  Their fallow ground lies in their hearts from the atrocities they saw and did.

     Neither side personal winners; they pass each other silently on their journey to the rest of their lives through the foggy, misty morning in my dead garden.

     The sun creeps from behind the clouds and evaporates the fog and mist.  The need for preparation for next years planting is all that is visible in the place that was so different just minutes before.

     But I know I saw my Soldiers.  Twice since I have sat on my back porch on foggy, misty mornings and felt their presence.  I have not seen them again but I know they are still going home.