As the rain pours down again in the Hudson Valley, New York area...

At the Library where I work, we join other libraries in our area every 2 years or so and hold something called 

THE BIG READ

We celebrate one title, an author or a genre.

Several years ago the featured book was Grapes of Wrath.

Libraryland, (as my best friend who is not my daughter or sister, Carol, calls our working world), had book discussions, films, plays, craft workshops, etc.- all to give the readers a feeling of what it was like to live during that time of American history, the Dustbowl era and resulting abandoning of the plains for greener pastures. I wrote the following as part of a Literary project at that time and with the glut of rain we have had in the last few weeks here in NY and the dearth of rain in Texas, this seemed like a good time to add this poem.

I Dream of Rain

Dried out, parched, barren, broken, stripped of life....

I dream of rain...
A drop, from a cloud, maybe three
Maybe a little more or less or maybe a heavy dew.
A mist building over time, soft on my earth, caressing, coating all in its finely dampened... misting...

A change in the air, a heaviness, thickening...
A charging between the molecules, thunderous crashing in the sky, forked lightening climbing up from the ground, up, up the ground/cloud highway, piercing the cloud, thrusting, forcing.... a gushing of water pouring forth, pouring forth, pouring forth....

The mist, the drenching, the wetness, cooling the dirt, sinking into the dry, reaching through the layers, giving, giving the liquid, the life, feeding the roots, roots drinking the water...

A growing... a small trickle, a small running over the dry, over the dirt, the rocks, a gathering of other drops together...

Washing away the dust, lifting the dirt, moving the dirt, moving the dirt, moving the soil, this pebble, this rock, this leaf, this branch...

Moving all in its path, its path spreading out... spreading, spreading to reach other trickles, other rivulets, other creeks, rivers... pouring, moving, moving the dirt, the layer, the fragile layer of growing soil, the fragile layers, tumbling over the rocks, over the leaves, over the stumps of dead trees, over the land...

Flooding over the ground, one drop, many drops, hundreds, thousands... millions upon millions...

The earth a sponge, a sponge, soaking, soaking in the wetness, overflowing with the wetness, stealing the soil, stealing the layers, flooding, flooding the land... giving, giving and taking my layers, my cover, my skin, my precious life.

I am Mother Earth and before, during and after the drought...

I dream of rain.