Prose & A Poem About: rain and RAIN
There is the beauty and there is the BEAST
Today’s Audio—
Hello all and sundry,
Ooof. Yes, OOOF. Come on in and let’s talk. We may need to sip on something a little stronger than tea today, though I know from experience that numbing feelings with any substances does nothing to change the weight of a dire hand dealt with only cards of despair. That hand is being held by far too many folks in Texas right now. We are all on our knees weeping and praying, rejoicing lives saved and desperately grieving lives lost. This rain has gone from being something unexpected and beautiful to something unexpected and beastly. That reversal in experiencing this water fall has required a change to today’s original prose post as well.
Originally, I wrote a prose piece about experiencing the pleasures of a slow soaking rain, one we had begin on the 3rd. Then—the 4th came. With it, every beautiful part was exchanged for everything dreadful. It paralleled the constant tug-of-war our experiences in this life seem to be set on having. This had me writing an alternate, contrasting poem. I’ll be sharing both of them, for in life there are ALWAYS these two: there is the beauty and there is the beast.
To begin—my original prose for the 8th. I’m including my introductory comments to y’all and my closing, and the prose in between.
The Beauty of Rain
The third of July it rained ALL day here in Texas. It fit my tearful mood with the craziness that has been dressed up as “normal” in our nation’s capital. We have needed the rain, though, and I wanted to feel the beauty of it and the gratitude for it. So, the fact that this falling coincided with the falling and failing of our government, I went from tearful to pissed. Wasn’t hard. How dare these unhinged tyrants interfere with such a heavenly gift like rain. Well, to curb that distressed feeling, I decided to write about my rainy-day experience. Should you be feeling the heaviness, like me, may it lighten the weight.
Give Me Rain
There is something both mournful and calming about low clouds moving in, the kind that cover the whole sky, filling in any light with dark shades, taking shadow from a room, or the trees, and transforming their misty selves from a bleak grey to an angelic white. They ease themselves down to caress the horizon of trees and float themselves in and out of densely leaved branches as though bathing them with a gentle-cycle washing. Every once in a while, a bigger dousing comes for a more thorough power scrub. The branches sway and the clusters of leaves bounce. Even the would-be dry parts of a trunk’s bark, should the rain have come with a quickly passing storm of well-formed clouds, are deeply darkened by their full cleansing. Nothing is dry. Not even the birds expecting a green umbrella, or the dirt that meets the emerged tree. The ground, unable to drink it fast enough, holds it, inch deep, and when it can’t do more at the moment, the water begins its flow to lower places and turns dirt drives into sudden brooks all heading to the dry tank in our pasture. The flow comes from all directions, in winding fashion, around clumps of grass or down critter worn paths. As each mini river meets the other, they combine and collect there. The gathered water takes a slow rise up the tank’s banks. In mere moments croaks can be heard as under-earth frogs give a “halleluiah!” for answer to their wet wishes. Each take their laps with webbed foot pulses and climb out the muddied edge to rest up for their full croaking chorus performance. They sing base and establish the beat, while an array of birds offers their high tones, quickly establishing vocal register transitions and soon all praise is being sung to the percussion of drip-drop drips. Fragrant freshness fills the dewy air; a bouquet gathered from cedar bark, purple crepe myrtles, Texas sage, and damp earth. As long as the sun holds back, it lingers lightly lilting on a breeze; any bursting rays weigh it down quickly with burdensome humidity. Today, on covered front porch, I sit on our old wood rocker and take slow, easy rocks. A full hummingbird feeder gains a crowd, while a break in rainfall. Their zoom, zoom hum and hover is interspersed with quick twitters, clicks, and chirps. As more arrive the aerial dogfight begins to establish whose turn and position. For such little beings they exhibit determined, aggressive moves to gain their place for long tongued drinks. Through the taking of all of this in, my heart’s heaviness is lifted by all I’ve witnessed in just a short idling. Rain may resemble tears, all awash in sadness, but in a still moment, it reveals nature’s joy, and there is nothing to do, but smile.
The, on the 3rd, closing—
Well, friends, any chance you were as lifted by the weather as I was? I do hope so. How grateful I am that God and Mother Nature deliver a different perspective. It is a centering in finding the joy in the moment; looking past the dreary to experience that other side, because, there, no matter what else is going on, it is delightfully divine.
Love y’all and thank you, from the depths of my heart, for coming by to read and listen. Do know that you are the delightful side of life as well!
Many blessings and MUCH LOVE,
~Wendy
AND, THEN…
In the early morning hours of July 4th, it all CHANGED…
….and this is the poem I wrote in order to release feelings.
The Beast of RAIN
Wet water drops, easily, slowly, tucks us in to shelters of— home, cabins, RVs, and lulls us to sleep with a gentle, false song; lovely is its comfort guiding us to sweet dream. Unknowingly, we sing along, until sleep keeps us from its lying lyrics, changes in its tune, booming blare, belts out treacherous, ruthless intentions. All off guard, we've become, living, awake to the nightmare. There is no compassion in its tone, as rushing, raging torrents deafen ears, distort the sound, drown out voices. A beast doesn't care, has no concern for compassion. Floods, forcefully flows, inflicts its fury, in churns and seething surge it rages over the blessed, beating beat of innocence, and carries away life's beauty and joy. The beast's battering breaks everything beautiful and we were all quite powerless to stop it— That unforgiveable banality of cruelty. How will we, possibly, get through— tomorrow? W. Gray -7/5/25
The, on the 5th, closing—
There are, so often, no words after the coming of the beast. Yet, I found words for the experience: Words—of lament. Words—of horror. Words—of disbelief. Words—of nature’s betrayal. Words—of grief. Our hearts’ feel all of them.
There are, so often, words which bring us back to beauty. Sparkling words of HOPE. For within every tragedy, there lies the Light of Miracles: rescues, finding safety, heroic interventions, precious souls found living, reunions of grateful relief.
The contrast is expansive. There is proof, that with every beastly cloud, we’ll discover the silver lining.
Please, keep the families and communities of central Texas in your hearts. They, we, need all the positive vibes and prayers we can get.
Many blessings and MUCH LOVE,
~Wendy💜
I have felt profound sadness but also dismay and anger for what happened in Hunt and Kerrville. So sorry about your state and so many losses! The holiday weekend was just the “perfect storm,” with so many factors contributing to the flooding disaster. Rain, which should be welcomed, was deadly. There was poor emergency management (and failure of the State of Texas to give grants to cities to help them improve it). Then there’s the failure of our federal government, hobbling NOAA and NWS, thanks to DOGE. They saw this rain coming and put out warnings, but the message never got to the people, like it should have. People who had this responsibility were fired or had retired. Again, just cutting costs so the money can go for more bombs and arresting immigrants. Then there’s the problem of putting camps and whole cities in flood plains too close to the river and keeping them there for a hundred years or more with no good disaster plan on how to get out, if necessary, and also putting small children and campgrounds in areas that are in the floodplain. It seems there were no cell phones or not enough of them, no weather radios, at the time of the flood, in the middle of the night, or there was poor cell coverage, or nobody called anyone at the first sign of trouble. People in tents and campers had no chance, either. It’s not like this hasn’t happened many times on the Guadalupe River, and people have died before, according to newspaper articles that I’ve read which have chronicled these events. Governments should be protecting Texas citizens and visitors and, of course, children, and they all failed. The people who pitched in right away are absolute heroes and should have had immediate assistance from FEMA, but it took 3 days to get a disaster declared by our President, who was golfing and celebrating signing a bill that will make a lot of people even more miserable. Such a sad state of affairs. I’m so sorry, Wendy, but I am relieved you weren’t in the area that flooded. It just tears me up to think of how fun summer camp can be, and how so many little girls were washed away from that experience as well as their families and the rest of their lives. Prayers are good, but action to make sure this never happens again is vital!
The beast of rain for sure in this circumstance. I can't imagine the grief and desperation it has created.