03 July 2024

Rain



Rain : Vincent Van Gogh


Wet days will show up soon here in India with the arrival of Monsoon, a symbol of life and variety. Everywhere you are filled with the petrichor emanating from the wet earth and your eyes feast on the running water droplets on window panes. In our sub-continent this rainy season has been captivated in the words of generations of authors, poets and musicians.

 

When in dark stormy nights we listen to Tagore’s songs we are compelled to look inward to find the ones we can’t find elsewhere; the charm of Tagore’s words or the marvel of monsoon it is we do not know.

 

In this era of climate change we would like to see rains, clouds, thunders, storms in words as well as in reality. I pray that monsoon reaches its destination and is not lost in the middle of nowhere.   

 

So our theme today is Rain and everything associated with it, the colors, moods, fragrance, blessings, and disasters. You might also write about the absence of rains if you wish to.

 

We read, in Japan they have more than fifty words for rain. I deeply appreciate their amazing artistic mindset. In Japanese Gan is sweet and Yu is rain and as a word Ganyu means a rain after a long drought. Houshanouu is radioactive rain. Experience is birthing language.

 

Basho writes of rain :

 

spring rain

leaking through the roof

dripping from the wasp’s nest

 

A couple of rain-poems :

 

Rain by DonPaterson

 

Horses and Menin Rain by Carl Sandburg


Please link one poem that is your response to the material of this prompt. When you link your poem please visit other links in the spirit of the community

23 comments:

  1. Thank you for the prompt Sumana - Jae

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  2. Hello everyone! We are having wet days and cool weather in this rainy season of ours in India. I hope you are also having good weather where you are. Looking forward to reading your rain poems now. Smiles.

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  3. Rain is a wonderful topic, especially in areas that are now prone to drought. The smell of petrichor always takes me back to childhood and my grandma's house. A smell like no other, just before the fat raindrops hit. Thanks for this prompt, Sumana. I look forward to reading the responses in our varied voices and locations.

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    1. Thanks Sherry. At present we are enjoying our days of rain. It's decent till now. I hope it stays like this before it's time to say goodbye. I am enjoying the lovely responses. But as it's getting late I'll be visiting everyone tomorrow morning.

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  4. I am at a wonderful Quaker conference, and will read poetry around dinner time. Looking forward to it!

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    1. It's bed time now for us. See you all tomorrow. Enjoy your day Susan.

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  5. That is Susan ❤️

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  6. I thought I knew what a hard rain was until I lived in the Philippines. There I saw rain that made midwestern American rain look feeble! They don't have monsoons there AFAIK, but they do have a rainy season. I look forward to writing for this.

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    1. Here on the west coast in winter, we have deluges where the rain pounds down, roars, floods streets, comes in sideways on the westerly. Rain gear required. Smiles. I kinda love winter storms. So fierce.

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    2. So lovely to see you Shay. Now I am looking forward to seeing the rainy season of the Philippines.

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  7. Jae, Annell, Suzie--how beautiful and different your poems are! How frustrating for me not to be able to leave my admiration on your posts! I have to sign in for every Google comment (!), but yours won't even take my name. Still, I love the reading. I thank you!

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  8. Thank you for this - Great prompt and hopefully i am somewhere near !

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  9. Thank you Alan. Your poem has words of gold.

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  10. We get monsoons here in the Valley in Arizona, which is definitely different than the rainstorms in western WA where I came from. A monsoon here can come and go abruptly, with sunshine on it's tails, but a deluge of rain in WA might slow but lingers on and on and you might not see the sun for weeks. I enjoyed this prompt! Thanks, Sumana!

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    1. Thank you Jennifer for the beautiful poem. So lovely to see you.

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  11. Suzie your poem and illustrations are gorgeous...Can't leave a comment on your blog...Rall

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  12. Wonderful prompt, Sumana; and I have enjoyed all of the wonderful contributions so far!

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    1. Thank you Mary. I also enjoyed the lovely responses.

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  13. What a great prompt, Sumana, one whose very nature allows us to envision a variety of experiences! Thank you.

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  14. Thank you so much Dora. Your poem was a treat. Sumana.

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