Reacting To Rain

I took one of my classes to the cafe this morning to buy the students a hot beverage and have them work in groups on a project. Each semester I try to take each class to the cafe once; doing so is one of the benefits of teaching at a small college, for at a larger university, I'd probably have a lot more students in one or more of my classes, and the nearest cafe might not be within a short stroll's distance.

However, Murphy's Law dictated that today the fiercest rain-and-wind-storm would arrive, making our 100-yard trek less than ideal but, on the other hand, making the hot beverages even more welcome once we arrived.

Even in this era of severe droughts, people who aren't farmers or fire-fighters tend to react negatively to rain, especially if it's wind-driven. "It's horrible out there," people say. On student in another class said, "On days like this, we should all just agree that we're going to stay home." Of course, people who live in truly difficult wintry climates, including Alaska, would mock our Pacific Northwest discomfort with storms; we are used to rain but, oddly enough, still unamused by genuine storms. We like our rain to be docile. In any event, most of us on campus are not farmers, who look at weather a little differently. Here's a short poem about that topic. I think I wrote it about five years ago.

Not Farmers

When cold rain
comes after long
drought, we are
supposed to be
delighted. We are
grim. We lower
our heads and
herd ourselves toward
workplaces. Spectacles
get wet. Thoroughfares
clog. The TV-figure
talking of weather
becomes manic,
gestures like a drunken
mime. Dead
vegetation stays that
way, only it’s
soggy. “We needed
this rain,” we
say to each
other, not quite as if
we mean it. We
stand in our soggy shoes.
We look longingly
across vast asphalted
distances at vehicles
that will carry and
cover us. Our discomfort
descends on us like a low-
pressure front. We
do not think of thirsty
roots feeding food
appearing on our tables
months from now.

Copryight 2007 Hans Ostrom