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Monday 7 May 2018

Poetry Monday: Rain

It's Poetry Monday and the topic is rain.

Join Diane, Delores and me as we wring as much as possible from this four-letter word. Read a poem, write a poem, leave a poem in the comments on any of our blogs. The objective is to get us thinking and have some fun.

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The first thing that always happens when Diane provides us with a topic is that every poem I've ever heard on the topic pops into my head and won't get out, not even when I use my stern voice.

I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, as my stern voice doesn't work on anyone or anything else, either.

I've decided to harness this problem and turn it into an asset. I used the rhythm and meter of Robert Louis Stevenson's little poem Rain, which has been thundering through my head all week, to come up with a copycat version. (Apologies, Mr. Stevenson. You know I love your poetry.)

Here is Robert Louis Stevenson's poem:

Rain

The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

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My turn now:

Cloudy With A Chance Of Floating Away


The rain is raining all around,
It pours on you and me.
It soaks the walkers, joggers too.
Why are they out? Beats me.

The rain is pounding on the roof,
The gutters freely flow.
The downspouts can't contain the flood --
Best not to stand below.

The rain is bouncing off the streets,
And running down the hills;
It's making puddles into lakes --
I fear we'll soon need gills.

The rain is creeping in my shoes,
And dripping down my neck;
It's dotting on my spectacles,
And causing Hairdo Wreck.

In spite of all my whiny noise,
There's one thing that I know:
While too much rain is surely bad,
At least it isn't snow.

*****

On a serious note, the rain has caused major flooding in our neighbouring province of New Brunswick, and my thoughts are with those who have been evacuated and those who have had damage to their homes. I hope everyone stays safe and that life returns to normal for them as soon as possible.

*****

Below are two videos I took last summer during a fifteen-minute downpour that accompanied a thunder-and-lightning storm. That rainstorm was the source of inspiration for some of the lines in my poem this week. (You'll get the point of the videos within the first, oh, three seconds or so . . . the rest is just more of the same. So don't feel you need to watch them for the full time.) (As far as that goes, don't feel you need to watch them at all. I'm sure  you've seen heavy rain before - hah.)


Looking through the window of our back door . . .



 And looking through the front window -- at the overflowing gutters . . .




*****

What's the worst rain you've ever seen?


Wishing you a Baby Bear week -- not too wet and not too dry, but ju-u-u-st right :)


Update: Next Monday's topic is "leaves and flowers the rain has brought" . . .



43 comments:

  1. How I would love to see, hear, smell rain. I love your poem. And can only cheat and add a Spike Milligan classic.
    'Soldier Freddy
    was never ready,
    But! Soldier Neddy,
    unlike Freddy
    Was always ready
    and steady,

    That's why,
    When Soldier Neddy
    Is-outside-Buckingham-Palace-on-guard-in -the-pouring-wind-and-rain-being-steady-and-ready ,
    Freddy
    is home in beddy.'

    ReplyDelete
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    1. That's a new one for me, and I love it! (And it's not cheating!) I do hope you get some gentle, steady rain soon. Thanks for playing along this week, EC.

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  2. So what did you think of Ishmael? Daniel Quinn died in February, and Briana has been re-reading his books, and I just noticed Ishmael in your recent reads list.

    I was born and raised in a place where it seemed like it rained all the damn time, so even though we really need rain here, I still don't like it much.
    And speaking of rain, this showed up in my YouTube feed the other day... It's a choir in India doing the song "Africa" by Toto, and I knew I would have to show it to Aussa, one of my favorite bloggers to whom that song has a special meaning (I did and she liked it) but when I watched it myself I discovered a little bit of magic they threw in before the song starts: the choir does its imitation of a thunder shower and I'm just going to shut up and post the link to it now:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxg3aoJxQ0

    -Doug in Oakland

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    1. It's been awhile since I read Ismael so I can't discuss it very intelligently, but overall I didn't find it as good as I had hoped it would be. Quinn himself says some of his later books were better, so I'll try again with another. Do you have a recommendation?

      I love the video - it's amazing how much the manual sound effects sound like the real thing. And it always blows me away that singers with a language other than English as their mother tongue sound like native speakers of it when they sing. Incredible!

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    2. Ishmael is the first of three books, the other two being "The Story of B" and "My Ishmael". Out of the three, my favorite is "My Ishmael".
      It's a little funny, the last time circumstances conspired to get me to read a lot of books, late 2015, I also came into a few thousand dollars from an inheritance, and I went out and bought all three books again and read each of them twice.
      I came away liking "Ishmael" better than I had remembered, but they all have their moments.
      They all three kind of helped me through a hard time then by wrenching my attention away from my immediate problems for a while and onto bigger, more important ones.
      Your mileage may vary...

      -Doug in Oakland

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    3. The same book, at different times in life, can be a different experience each time, eh? I think I'll check our library and see if I can find more of Quinn's books there. Thanks, Doug.

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  3. Hello Jenny, loved your poem, couldn't tell where Robert Louis Stevenson left off and yours began.

    I don't really mind the rain as long as it doesn't go on for too long. I always think that worse things happen at sea. My husband on the other hand, who is a sun worshipper, hates it with a passion. He is always checking the weather forecast, in fact it gets a bit boring, lol, as he keeps me updated. The weather will do what it wants to do, whether it's more of the same or a complete surprise as this Bank Holiday is at the moment with lots of sun and HOT temperatures.

    Anyway, only a short one today, I'm afraid.

    Rain.

    "Rain, rain, go away,
    Come again another day".

    Has the chant we sang as children,
    Stored the rain in tanks above,
    Until the heavens were overflowing,
    So was returned to us with love?

    Have a good week.

    Joan (Devon)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice one, Joan -- thanks for contributing again this week. I agree with you, no sense in dissecting the weather too much because we can't do anything to affect it! I heard you folks were having a heat wave . . .

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    2. You Husby reminds me of my Dad, Joan. He used to check the weather every day--mostly because he had to be out in it, whatever it did.
      He started reciting this:
      It ain't no use to grumble and complain,
      It's every bit as easy to rejoice,
      When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
      Rain's my choice.

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  4. “While too much rain is surely bad, At least it isn’t snow.” I say Amen to that!

    I like rain once or twice a week, preferably at night. I also like rain on days that I want to do nothing and just curl up in a blanket and veg on Netflix. I like rain when the weather people do not add adjectives to it and warn of impending doom, I certainly don’t like rain when ithey say it is a “category 4 or 5. However, Mother Nature doesn’t care about what I like.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Ha ha! You're so right :) But we can always wistfully prefer different weather . ..

      I too am not a fan of the detailed weather forecasts. Maybe I just have a short attention span, but I lose the thread of thought about ninety percent of the time!

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  5. Love the poem! Great job! The last line is always my thought too.

    Lots of rain here but no flooding.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's good to hear. Our neighbours are having a hard time of it.

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  6. That was such a great poem! We did get a lot of rain a little while ago but I'm glad it wasn't snow. And that there was no flooding!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. That's good. High water scares me to pieces. I'm glad we both had no flooding! But I feel for those who did.

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  7. A very enjoyable poem on a topic that is talked about almost everyday. On the prairies rain is talked about constantly...is it ever going to rain?

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    1. It's very important for agriculture, so I can see why. Thanks for reading, Red!

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  8. That was great....one of your best I'm thinking.

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    1. Thanks, Delores. It was one of the easiest, I must say :)

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  9. Rain

    All through that night
    And into the following day
    It rained.
    We tried to shelter
    In the lee of trees
    By the crossroads
    Where we used to play -
    Fine at first
    The droplets grew,
    Plothering from oak leaves
    Under that leaden sky
    Till sodden the verges
    And the old road
    Be-puddled
    Muttering rivulets
    Flowed down Harrison's Hill
    Gurgling to gutters
    Replete with water
    While wet as fish
    We splashed home
    In the endless rain,
    The endless
    Rain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember this! It's full of wonderful descriptions. And it's where I first heard of the word "plothering." Thanks for contributing, YP.

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    2. I have a new word. Plothering. Ooh! It's just delightful. And sooo descriptive.
      Like the soggy landscape lurking behind the rest of the words . . . Wonderful!

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  10. I always think of the Beatles’ song Rain and remember the many rainy days. we had when growing up.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. They did a great job with that song, didn't they? And songs are just poems set to music, so they were really poets underneath :)

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  11. There is nothing like rain in the tropics. I miss the sounds and smells.

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    1. That's something I've never experienced, e. I'd like to hear about it from you if you feel inclined to blog about it sometime.

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  12. I love the gentle cooling rain that patters on my window pain
    The garden loves refreshing showers it soaks the dust from all the flowers

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    1. So true! And very succinct :) Thanks for contributing, Cherie.

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  13. Oh, my word! Best. Jenny. Poem. Ever!!! I laughed through ever single verse! Perfect!

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    1. Thank you, Diane - you are easy to please :D

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  14. Absolutely Beautiful and delightful poem dear Jenny!

    being inspired is natural human instinct but you seemed at your best in your poem !!!

    our observations and experiences reflect through your art and you truly know ell how to put it , LOVED IT!!!

    here in southern Pakistan rains are rare and i miss the rainy thunderstorms of my native land where i often saw lightening falling upon the hills during heavy rains

    no matter ow much i get worry about roofless or date garden i cannot lie about my mad love with rain which awaken my true self

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Me, too, baili. I feel alive in the rain, less so in the sun. I would miss the rain so much if we didn't have it, even though we have a lot of it. Thank you for your kind words. I hope you get to visit your native region soon and experience those rainy thunderstorms again.

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  15. I wear spectacles for reading, which I do indoors usually. I hadn't thought about rain on glasses. Another thing to look forward to.....

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    1. It never occurred to me that raindrops on glasses would be news to anyone! Here's another tip, if you end up needing full-time glasses. They fog up if you go from cold outside weather to a place indoors that's warm. And in the summer if it's humid out they can also fog up if you go from air conditioning to the outside air. Wretched things :)

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  16. Ha! You made me laugh! The typical Canadian refrain: "At least it isn't snow".

    When we arrived on Vancouver Island last winter, we watched the weather forecasts. One day a weather warning popped up: "Heavy rain, up to 2 inches".

    So I watched the weather all day, waiting for the deluge. And it rained. Kinda. Maybe two inches over the next couple of days. I laughed and said to Hubby, "These people are crazy. On the prairies, we can get two inches of rain in half an hour. THAT'S a rainstorm worthy of a weather warning."

    But the joke was on us this year, when we had sixteen inches of rain in the month of November. Two inches over a couple of days might not seem like much, but when it just keeps... on... coming... Uh, yeah.

    I hope you're far away from the flooding - stay safe out there!

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    1. Yep, there are two ways to get a lot of rain, slow and steady or fast and furious :) We are not in any flood danger where we live, fortunately.

      Your weather has been atypical there ever since you moved, hasn't it? Or is it just that I'm taking more notice of it?

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    2. No; it's been completely weird. I'm pretty sure it's our fault... ;-)

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    3. Ha ha! From now on try to use your weather powers for good only, Diane! :D

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  17. Replies
    1. Very kind of you - thanks! I am having a lot of fun, most of the time - ha ha

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  18. You have wrote beautifully about the rain.I used to enjoy during rain:)

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    1. Thank you! I enjoy the rain, too, especially a gentle rain. I'm glad there are other people who like it, too :)

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