When the rains came (?)
Last night there was rain. For weeks now the relentless heat has scorched the grass and shrivelled flowers before they had a chance to bloom. Days have been long and blue and cloudless and while it was great fun frolicking around beaches and splashing in the bath-warm waters of the lake, the gardens and potagers around about have been choking and gasping with thirst. Sometimes ominous clouds gathered in a far corner of the sky, advanced like a dark cloak and then passed by without so much as a drop of the soft stuff to quench parched roots. One afternoon a storm was predicted. So severe that the town hall sent out a loudspeaker van to garble about a red alert and tell us to unplug susceptible phone lines and generally get our hatches battened down. We did so. To no avail. Yes there were dramatic flashes of lightening. The purple sky lit up like a giant flash camera was taking a picture of the Earth. White jagged forks stood out stark against the darkening twilight sky. There was even gusty, if brief, wind to unsettle the stifling heat. But not the faintest rumble of thunder followed and no rain appeared. None. And the grass looked even more desert-like. Distressed, trees began to shed leaves twisted and already browned and, of course, the hosepipe ban continues. Then last night it rained. Sufficient to send diners rushing indoors, plates and glasses in hand and for us all to heave a sigh of anticipated relief. But we were too soon. This egg cupful of moisture was over in no time. It left no impact whatsoever on the barren terrain. And although today has followed grey and cloudy, still no relief falls from the sky. It’s as though there is an opaque dome of glass over us all so that the clouds are doing what they do and carrying rain but it’s just not getting down here on the ground. It can’t go on forever. Or so we keep on saying. Perhaps the rainstick will help. It certainly can’t harm and is in any event a lovely, lilting sound. Reminding us of what we’re missing. That battering on rooflights and steady dancing thrum that, strangely, we wish away when it settles in for days. Yet now we turn the rainstick this way and that and close our eyes to imagine what it will be like when finally the drought breaks. Seamus Heaney has a wonderful tribute to the rainstick. It shows his supreme mastery of words and ability to conjure a whole film festival from just a few short lines. Perhaps if I share it the combination of poem-magic and rainstick will bring about the desired break in the dry-eyed sky. And if not at least we can enjoy this lovely festival of words by the master himself. The Rainstick by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney 1939 - 2013 Upend the rainstick and what happens next Is a music that you never would have known To listen for. In a cactus stalk Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe Being played by water, you shake it again lightly And diminuendo runs through all its scales Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves, Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies; Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air. Upend the stick again. What happens next Is undiminished for having happened once. Twice, ten, a thousand times before. Who cares if the music that transpires Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus? You are like a rich man entering heaven Through the ear of a shower. Listen now again.
