Evesdroppings

A bit gimmicky maybe, a bit in thrall to randomness. But this was one way of encapsulating the drenched day. The gutter above us might be blocked (clogged with storm-ripped leaves perhaps). In any case, when I heard yet another downpour I opened the front door on a virtual waterfall. Risky enough taking this, standing just inside and looking up, but I managed to avoid getting the camera splashed.

I wasn't sure if the camera could catch the heavy, bead-curtain fleshiness of the shower and was delighted when it did. Rain often reminds me of Edward Thomas' poem about listening to a heavy downpour, which is both gloomy and somehow bracing:

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.


NB
Our poor wee cat Toby has gone missing again, nearly a week now. He's no doubt sheltering somewhere, and appeared on the back porch last night to take the small offering of leftovers from his dish. My mother was woken when he activated the light, but he fled when he saw her. He has a taste for the great outdoors now. If he returns again we'll really have to put in a catflap.