Tag Archives: rain

Dampness is married to gravity.

LINGERING IN HAPPINESS

After rain after many days without rain,
It stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground

where it will disappear — but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;

and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.

–Mary Oliver

Rainyness

sage & rain 9-11-14

Just hours after my last post, my prayer for rain, showers did fall on us. I knew that there had been a weatherman’s chance of that in addition to our hope. P.G., as the Irish say, Please God, there will be a dampening in those places that need it most, to retard the incendiary possibilities!

When I drew the blinds this morning, a hummingbird was feeding at the Mexican Bush Sage, but when I went to get my camera he must have gone home and got the message that it’s too wet right now for that, because he never would come back. But he will, and a passel of relations with him, because they love this sage.

I’ve been wanting to take a picture of our bush that is humongous this summer. It only came into full bloom within the last week or so, but it will keep going until Christmas and beyond. It’s a plant whose stems must be cut to the ground every winter, and then this happens! Without being irrigated, I might say. Not long ago I included it here in a list of drought-tolerant plants.

So thankful for a rainy day, even if it doesn’t register on the rain gauge. A friend is bringing Indian food for lunch today – and doesn’t that sound perfect?

sage w cross 9-11-14

surprising lavender food

As I was enjoying my quiet and contemplative day, it was in the back of my mind that at some point I would have to get practical and find something with which to make dinner. The sort of solitude I had been enjoying precluded any kind of shopping.

I was surprised to end up lav soup 4-14with lavender soup.

This is how I did it:

Back in Butter Week, I made some yummy pasta with beans and cheese and greens, but it was too large a batch to use up before Lent, so I froze a quart of it. During Lent a purple cabbage came in my CSA box, and I have been trying to figure out what to do with it. Today I thought of making cabbage soup with sausage, but that would require me going to the store, so I looked in the freezer and discovered the pasta e fagoli, as I might call it if I were Italian. On the container I had written the suggestion “Make soup,” so I followed that plan and added some cheese sauce that I whipped up.

P1090679crp

As the concoction was simmering, I looked out at the rain falling into the swimming pool, and took a picture through the door of the miniature roses that look especially good from a distance, because you can’t see the black spot.

I didn’t anticipate that the rain would hold on and keep dripping all through dinner, meaning that soup was the perfect food to have. And lavender is very much one of those Easter egg colors so we had a Springtime experience as well. Our friend Cat ate some with Mr. Glad and me.

After we all had emptied our bowls of second helpings of the very comforting and tasty soup, Cat and I sort of visited through the glass door with a neighborhood cat who stopped by and stared at us. He had found a dry spot under my gardening bench. He doesn’t have too much to do with the rest of this post, but his eyes are also a pretty Easter egg color.

4-2014 bengal cat

Rain, Soup, and Someone

Thanks to Maria, I found a poem that captures a little of how sweet it is to have rain splashing against windows — that is, if you have no lack of life’s other little or huge blessings, like a Beloved Someone for whom you can warm up a bowl of soup, as I did this evening for mine. I am the Empress.

THE EMPEROR

She sends me a text
she’s coming home
the train emerges
from underground

I light the fire under
the pot, I pour her
a glass of wine
I fold a napkin under
a little fork

the wind blows the rain
into the windows
the emperor himself
is not this happy

~ Matthew Rohrer