Thunder in the distance, the night's work to come as it has come before me and as it will grow the grass of my grave. There is just the one lamp, by which I read, looking over my shoulder, perched on a bookshelf like an owl. I share my nights with words, those worlds of letters splayed as folio, ideas like flame flickering shadows into the tangled recesses of my briar, soothing the thorns of my darkness and further lighting the path with no end, dark as the thundered night, immense as the Milky Way my city has stolen from my eyes and the eyes of my child.The first gentle diffident pawing upon my roof closes my eyes. The rain has come, softly, shyly as if pulling a blanket over a sleeping child. I listen with my mind, watching language emerge in explanation and I wonder if the rain knows it is rain and the thunder thunder. And if so, do they live in the same ideological prisons as I, labeling every experience as this or that, right or wrong, good or bad. And if the rain knew it was just rain, would it still feed the fields and dance upon the lakes and paint pictures upon my windows, like children do. So I close my eyes and let these ideas drift away while remaining with the rain, the sound, the hue and texture.
Like a thousand fingers strumming, the rain announces itself. Like the distant roar of a stadium, thunder as percussion, muted as color in the perspective of miles. My mind returns and I label the rain feminine and the thunder masculine, one gentle, the other boisterous and demanding, loving the one, fearing the other; and I think, what if I have it all wrong. What if everything I believe is of a map incorrect. If the rain and thunder are something greater, something beyond the box I've placed them. But the thunder thunders again and the rain picks up and I forget what came before in my mind in the way one forgets the song played before when the song you want floats through the air.
It is raining tonight. And thundering. And me and my lamp and my book of Keats sit, one as silent as the other as we make space for the concert of the night.
16 comments:
But see, that is just it, rain knows that it is just rain, but it pours itself out anyway. It pours itself out unashamed.
I've got nothing on your soul, kid. I'm sure of it.
I'm just a cistern hoarding the rain, quiet as an undiscovered mountain lake. Thanks for the visit Kelly.
And what of the lightening? Just curious. Where does the lightening fit in? (Any damn where it chooses, I suppose.)
This piece was written last night as I lay in bed reading. I heard the distant thunder and then the rain and I just had to put Keats down and listen--and I suppose write too. No lightning last night. I suppose the thunder was just all talk. Then again, perhaps, you are talking about a different kind of lightning. :-D
First off, I think the rain should enjoy to be the rain even if it were self aware.
And then, how sad that the city has stolen the milky way. Last night I was out for a walk beneath a heady sky. I stopped midstreet and my neighbour, a lumber jack of a guy, but small, leaned out of the window of his truck laughing up the absurdity of me lost in the middle of a side street, clearly lost to the milky way.
And then, I wonder at the exclusive notions of masculine and feminine anything. If that is so, then that is as sad as a lost milky way. Instead, let it all, the masculine and the feminine, fall as rain.
Erin, the masculine/feminine bit in this post was influenced by one of my favorite topics, which is how language shapes thought. Here is the article that tickled my memory and influenced this post:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/205985
Here is an excerpt:
When the Viaduct de Millau opened in the south of France in 2004, this tallest bridge in the world won worldwide accolades. German newspapers described how it "floated above the clouds" with "elegance and lightness" and "breathtaking" beauty. In France, papers praised the "immense" "concrete giant." Was it mere coincidence that the Germans saw beauty where the French saw heft and power? Lera Boroditsky thinks not. . . .
As in that bridge. In German, the noun for bridge, Brücke, is feminine. In French, pont is masculine. German speakers saw prototypically female features; French speakers, masculine ones. Similarly, Germans describe keys (Schlüssel) with words such as hard, heavy, jagged, and metal, while to Spaniards keys (llaves) are golden, intricate, little, and lovely. Guess which language construes key as masculine and which as feminine? Grammatical gender also shapes how we construe abstractions. In 85 percent of artistic depictions of death and victory, for instance, the idea is represented by a man if the noun is masculine and a woman if it is feminine, says Boroditsky. Germans tend to paint death as male, and Russians tend to paint it as female.
But what comes first, the thought or the language, and why are we limiting ourselves so? Freaken culture, sometimes it just gets in the way.
I'd like to see more fluidity in our thoughts and our language but I am to blame just as much as the next, me in my skirt, cleavage-aux-jigglish and nest. But does it make a difference if I wear big boots and carry an axe?
And for some strange reason that I can't understand I'm saddened that our language can perhaps dictate our thoughts before we're even allowed to form them. Pretty pathetic, us.
Speaking only for myself, the image comes first. I see and think in images, pictures. Shape, color, movement. From these my mind tries to categorize. Tries to make sense, friend or foe, fight or flight, etc. In the making sense, labels come to mind. But, at the end of the day, the label is never the thing. But it is nice to have a bunch of labels. :-D
Your mind seems a wonderful place to be during a storm.
Cat, most of the time, my mind seems nothing but a storm. :-D
I can hear the rain... wonderful post
Sue
Thanks Sue. Always nice to see a new face. :-)
"There is just the one lamp, by which I read, looking over my shoulder, perched on a bookshelf like an owl." This makes me smile because there is one lamp on... over my shoulder... not so much like an owl though :) And it is raining outside in the deep South. And I am reading, not Keats, but you.
It appears that I have superior reading material :)
Oh Jen, you know tea in the south comes with sugar. :-D
I lived, for some years, in a log cabin with a red tin roof. Because of that roof, I wanted rain, I wanted storms. I'd see the grey overhead, a moving loom of sky, and my heart would run rapid in anticipation. The rain, and the thunder, lightning would come, and every bounce against the tin, would bolt through my pores, beat through my veins, pound all the dark spots into light. I'd feel it as if Mother Nature had summoned a concert, my body her concert hall, and the body without form, my deep-skinned lover.
You make me want rain, thunder and storm, taken again inside me.
S., thank you for that wonderful poetic comment. I do so like the way you wield language. Growing up in south Louisiana, we had the most magnificent afternoon thunderstorms and from an early age, I developed a love of rain and thunder. I suppose for several reasons, but I'm speculating now. In Louisiana it is so hot, rain signals a brief respite. Rain also means outdoor work would come to a stop. And, as I child, it meant everyone had to come inside, so in a way, the rain created forced playtime with family members that might not have otherwise been willing. As I grew, however, the melodic, sensual nature of rain, replaced those other things. And new associations came to replace the others, but still, rain meant good things.
Post a Comment