July 5: "Lingering in Happiness," Rain, Wormly Stupid

Mary Oliver enjoys the rain . . . 

Lingering in Happiness

by:  Mary Oliver

After rain after many days without rain,

it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,

and the dampness there, married now to gravity,

falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground

where it will disappear--but not, of course, vanish

except to our eyes.  The roots of the oaks will have their share,

and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss,

a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole's tunnel;

and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,

will feel themselves being touched.

It rained this morning.  Pretty hard for a short while.  It was the kind of rain that hits the roof so hard it sounds like the death rattle of a thousand crows.  And then it was over, although the storm clouds lingered all day like a bad hangover.

Oliver uses rain as a metaphor.  It appears after days without moisture, scrubs the world clean, seeps into the soil until it touches everything, right down to the rocks buried so deeply that they haven't been kissed by sunlight for a millennium.

When grief comes to visit, it can linger for a long time, like an out-of-town relative who won't go home after a funeral.  I've been living with grief for quite a while now.  Sometimes, it takes a holiday, and I almost feel like I've gotten my life back.  Then I wake up one morning to find grief sleeping in the guest room again.

The world did look cleansed after it rained this morning.  Scrubbed.  

I walked down the sidewalk after the rain, saw worms sprawled out on the cement.  As a kid, I often wondered why worms appeared in such quantity after a soaking storm.  It always seemed so wormly stupid to me, exposing their fat worm bodies to hungry birds and the sun.  Perhaps the worms were trying to escape some worse underground threat.  Perhaps the rain flooded their dirt kingdom, and it was either escape to the surface or drown in a muddy ocean.  (Imagine the movie Titanic with all the Irish and Italian immigrants played by worms.)  

Just as grief can flood a life, so can happiness.  I think that's Oliver's point with this poem.  You can drown in sadness or joy.  The rain this morning washed away the heat headache of the last few days, and the grass and flowers and stones rejoiced, danced in the torrents.

Saint Marty gives thanks for the happiness of fresh rain.