Who’ll Start the Rain?

Long as I remember the rain been comin’ down.
Clouds of myst’ry pourin’ confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages, tryin’ to find the sun;
And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.

—Creedence Clearwater Revival

I thought it would rain today. My body told me it would. My legs swelled. My joints ached. Even joints I didn’t know I had ached. I ached so much I didn’t go to Roanoke this morning, even though I’d planned to. By afternoon, I ached even more. Where’s the rain? Who stopped it from coming?

The sky promised rain all day. Granted, we got a brief thunderstorm this morning, but it was mostly noise. The shower wasn’t even enough to wet the ground.

The wind howled this afternoon. The sky stayed cloudy. No rain.

The ants built up their hills, a sure sign of heavy rain. No rain.


But we’ve had rain lately. The fields and the flowerbeds are proof.




The horses grazed in their green pasture under a grey sky.


Besides the recent rain, this is another reason why the pasture is green:


Cupcake ate dandelions, a source of vitamin C.


I sat in the gazebo and looked at things in bloom.


I watched a tiger swallowtail dart among the lunaria.


I didn’t accomplish much today—a few loads of laundry, some editing of a friend’s manuscript, bundling newspapers for recycling, a little work on my next column, some work on a story I plan to submit to an anthology, a little net-surfing and reading friends’ blogs, a few photos that I snapped and downloaded (some of which you see here).

Mostly, I waited for the rain.

I went down Virginia, seekin’ shelter from the storm.

—Creedence Clearwater Revival

I’m in rural Virginia, and there’s no storm here. Yet.

~