Looking at the wondrous waterfalls and an old, abandoned house at the White River in WA earlier this fall, I was reminded of Bishop’s poem Song for the Rainy Season. The poem’s short lines and enjambment establish a kind of breathless rhythm, matching my breathless climb back up from the river, once I had explored the ruins. The poet describes the beauty of a wet landscape with a home embedded within, in the tropical forests of Brazil where she lived for some 15 years. The rainy season has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest and adjacent High Desert regions as well, and before you rush to wish for a return of the dry, read the 6th stanza. Some of the magic and coloring will all dry up….

Song for the Rainy Season.

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

In a dim age
of water
the brook sings loud
from a rib cage
of giant fern; vapor
climbs up the thick growth
effortlessly, turns back,
holding them both,
house and rock,
in a private cloud.

At night, on the roof,
blind drops crawl
and the ordinary brown
owl gives us proof
he can count:
five times–always five–
he stamps and takes off
after the fat frogs that,
shrilling for love,
clamber and mount.

House, open house
to the white dew
and the milk-white sunrise
kind to the eyes,
to membership
of silver fish, mouse,
bookworms,
big moths; with a wall
for the mildew’s
ignorant map;

darkened and tarnished
by the warm touch
of the warm breath,
maculate, cherished;
rejoice! For a later
era will differ.
(O difference that kills
or intimidates, much
of all our small shadowy
life!) Without water

the great rock will stare
unmagnetized, bare,
no longer wearing
rainbows or rain,
the forgiving air
and the high fog gone;
the owls will move on
and the several
waterfalls shrivel
in the steady sun.

By Elizabeth Bishop

Music today is by Brahms, the Sonata contains motifs of his Rain Song.