Raymond Carver Rain Thoughts

Raymond Carver wrote poems and stories with many mentions of rain. In some recent poems of his I’ve read, he doesn’t use the article “the” before rain. He lets rain stand alone. I never use an article before rain. Rain doesn’t need it. Poetry of rain certainly doesn’t need it. Using an umbrella is like using “the” before rain. Let rain fall without introduction or barrier. Can rain wash away insanity? Yes. It can be a clarifying sane friend but don’t whisper that to the officially sane and powerful. If you do, they’ll think your insane. Rain falls mainly on the plain (although not in Oregon) on the sane and insane like but the complainers about rain are the ones who control the weather of our lives.

It is raining as I write this. I want to hear Hank Williams sing about rain. I wrote this years ago: rain ruins guns; the sun keeps powder dry. I have climbed a ladder of rain in my life. It wasn’t even slippery. Remember that great funk song by The Commodores, “Slippery When Wet”? It wasn’t about rain. I have seen hummingbirds fly in rain, once seven at time. You don’t forget something like that. A kind of bad human rain is falling upon me and finding cracks. Seepage has occurred. Water damage has commenced. I need an urgent caulking, but with what kind of caulk? Who will caulk me? There is no rain in hell, only fire. Rain turns certain children into brats. A good stropping by rain won’t improve their surly dispositions. Where is my great cryptic rain writer? Resolute. I must remain resolute to combat the ongoing and imposed dehydration of my soul. I will find my resolve by walking in rain. People cancel appointments when it rains with ferocity. I keep them and make the appointment become part of a rain story. Rain initiates acts of kindness; the sun forestalls them. I’ve got one box of rain books left. Box of Rain. I think there was a song along those soggy lines. I plan on conducting an experiment. I will let rain fill an empty cardboard box (that formerly contained by rain books) and see how long the box holds water. Then, I will have the science and the metaphor I need to survive.

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