Rain is grace...

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.  John Updike

Photo Copyright, Margaret Buffie

          

During the winter months, I sometimes "dream" of rain - falling on the boreal forest around my lake cabin and on city streets where I live.

In my daydreams, it is usually spring at the lake. I see the first rain drops falling one by one, pockmarking the water until they are joined by millions of others - or I dream about those rare times, when I've watched a long sheet of rain come in from the far bay - a vast sweeping curtain - its huge determined cloud toward sliding toward me. I remember the number of times I stood on our old dock, watching and waiting. When I see the wall of rain startle the water near my island into a wild dance I hold my breath. I know I'm about to get good and wet! In this photo I am hiding under the old lowering Jack Pine. Here are some of my favourite artists.

Rain, Gustav Caillebotte

Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, John Constable   

As one song puts it, "I love a rainy day" Right now, on June 7, 2015 - the tree branches are bowed from a heavy downpour and cars are swishing past my house. If I went out my front door right now and took a short walk, I would see the elms along our city boulevard dripping with rain and smell the distant scent of white lilacs, car exhaust, mowed lawns and I could peer into the many puddles on the road reflecting the images that surround them. 

Puddle, 1952 Esher

Perfect Puddle, David Hockney, IPad Art

But if I walk out my back door into the garden there will be the smell of my small purple lilac hedge, a few open roses and the welcoming earthy spiced smells of my herbs, as the maple tree behind the fence rolls its last few drops of water onto my fat peony buds. 

Terrace in the Rain in Marquayrol,  Henri Martin

In the Rain, Franz Marc

The Window in the Garden, Henri Martin 

I will be at my lake cabin soon, and I will have my cameras ready for my walks. After a rain, I know the paths behind our cabin well, and I will discover mushrooms of every kind that have popped up overnight; bright yellow witch's butter oozing out of rotting logs, orange jelly poking out of old woodpecker holes, aromatic milky mushrooms in the deep mosses, white puff balls with tender spiked heads, red, white, gray and orange mushrooms - some flat topped, some curved, some bobbled and spotted  - all sleek with rain.

Mist  in the Forest, Nicholas Roerich

The rocks I climb across will have deep cushions of sphagnum moss after a rainfall, some so green they look almost neon in the shade. I have to walk carefully as those rocks will be slippery with wet soil hidden under the moss, while the earth on the paths I descend into will be dark and rich with odors, There I will find my mushrooms.





"The sudden appearance of mushrooms after a summer rain is one of the more impressive spectacles of the plant world." John Tyler Bonner

Photo, © Margaret Buffie

Photo, © Margaret Buffie

The rain begins with a single drop. Manal al-Sharif

First Drops of Rain By the Marsh © Photo Margaret Buffie

Rain Landscape, Max Gubler

Thy fate is the common fate of all;

Into each life some rain must fall.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Blue Rain Photo ©  Margaret Buffie

Paris Street Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte

Spring Rain  Erte

At night I dream that you and I are two plants 

that grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain.  Pablo Neruda

I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, 
of rain and wind, of the galaxies. Eden Ahbez

Rain Shower  Eyvind Earle

The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning

or intention but the fulfillment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.

Helen Garner

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.  Vladimir Nabokov

Downpour Nicholas Roerich

Rain, Erte



Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept 

and tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky.

Arna Bontemps

I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a 

wonderful feeling, I'm happy again.

Arthur Freed

The Dance of the Rain, David Alfaro Siqueiros

One must know the so-called 'lesson of a downpour.' A man, caught in a sudden rain en route, dashes along the road not to get wet or drenched. Once one takes it for granted that in rain he naturally gets wet, he can be in a tranquil frame of mind even when soaked to the skin. This lesson applies to everything. Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Rainstorm on Ohashi Bridge, Ando Hiroshige

Rain,  Dmitry Kustanovich 

Listen to the falling rain,

Listen to it fall,

And with every drop of rain,

I can hear you call,

Call my name right out loud,

I can here above the clouds

And I'm here among the puddles,

You and I together huddle.

Listen to the falling rain

Jose Feliciano

Rain, Marc Chagall

Lovers Seated at the Foot of A willow Tree, 

Camille Pissaro

.... my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.

Pablo Neruda

Thunderhead, Tom Thomson

Rainy Landscape II  Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas

There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down.

Don DeLillo

Rain in Belle-Ile - Claude Monet, 1886

Ray Embankment in Basel in the rain Alexandre Benois 

After the Rain

This morning's scene is good and fine, 
Long rain has not harmed the land.

Du Fu

Fog and Storm and Rain, Eyvind Earle

After a Rain,  Arkhip Kuindzhi

Rain Mist and Sun, A. J. Casson

Clearing after the Rain JEH MacDonald 

When you are so full of sorrow,

that you can't walk, can't cry anymore, 
think about the green foliage that sparkles

after the rain. 

Omar Khayyam

Pond at Milton on the Hudson, George Innes