Poetry for a Gloomy Day
Well, I’m on a roll with poetry and quotations this week, I guess. It is 2:45 and the sun has been hiding all day. It’s so dark it feels like dusk. It’s 63 degrees F, actually nice and warm.
However, it has been raining off and on for enough days now that there are little streams of water flowing over the floor in my basement. This is the type of house and basement we have (the house was originally built in 1904). It is definitely utility rather than luxury, and that is actually why I have room to dye wool… I can just hose off the floor when I am done, if need be. It’s perfect in a lot of ways. But when the water just keeps coming from the sky… well, it has to go somewhere and a little of it makes itself comfy indoors, long enough to make its way to the drain in the floor.
Today will be a dyeing day but it is getting started late. I need a lot of sleep when it’s rainy season, because of my allergies. I went to bed late, got up late. Now I’m getting my act together and will be making some pretties in a few hours.
Meanwhile, I’d love to share a poem with you. This book is long out of print but it can often be found on the used market. There is even a cassette tape of the poems being read aloud by some esteemed actor whose name I can not remember right now. The book is full of excellent poetry by children, compiled in the 1960s. Here is one of my favorites:
Rain
©1966 by Adrian Keith Smith
Age 4
New ZealandFrom the Book:
Miracles, Poems by children of the English-speaking world
Collected by Richard Lewis
Simon and Schuster, 1966The rain screws up its face
and falls to bits.
Then it makes itself again.
Only the rain can make itself again.
———
I’m so glad somebody valued this child’s words so much, they took the time to write them down. What a gift!

