Rain: A Little Scrapbook In Art

First off, the usual starter, with apologies. Sorry there was no post Saturday. But! I actually have a decent excuse, which was that it was Passover. It's not really a great excuse because I still had time and I could've done a post ahead of time, but shh shh don't think about that. Also sorry that today's post is so late. Yeah.

So today, I thought I'd revisit a post theme that I did back in January, where I put together a collage of different art forms relating to snow. Well, now it's April, and the spring rains are here. Some of you probably know that I love rain. Like, I obsessively love rain, it's super annoying, I have ten thousand poems about it and if you pull up to pick me up all grumpy because of driving in the rain, I'll probably say something like "ISN'T THE WEATHER AMAZING!"

Naturally, I know a lot of art things about rain. I'm only going to share a portion of them here. I was about to write a paragraph about different types of rain but I want people to not click away from my blog, so no.

Hope you enjoy!

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(P.S. If it's raining right now where you are, open the window! Unless you don't have an insect screen, I guess. If not, go to RainyMood.com to create the sound of rain in the background. Or, you know. Don't have the best sound ever, I guess.)


(Chris Turnham)

 The Rain by William Henry Davies

I hear leaves drinking rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out,
After this Rain shall stop,
A wondrous Light will fill
Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;

'Twill be a lovely sight.

 
 (Gustave Caillebotte)

(Brian Crain)

April Trusting by me
Nothing is hidden from the late April rain,
come silvering down from the bright white sky,
layers of light and water.
Soft sound, it falls like cloth,
like gentle thoughts on the edge of the walls,
bringing the dream to drift away from you
like a shadow.
The sky opens up like a portal
to all the April rains of ever.
Because April wears a dress made of memories,
all falling off in a cascade of water before she goes to sleep.

On the shiny grey school roof,
like it's been falling in my heart forever.
Hanging as crystals, almost snow, on the end of a pine branch,
in the courtyard,
suspended like this day of rain
soon to fall and dissolve into forgotten-ness.

And April's trusting
as she shakes the flowers out of her hair,
gathers your heartsongs in her breast,
sings like a little bird who rejoices at the rain.
April paints this day for you,
waits, this day, for you,
hair tangled with rain like your bejeweled insect-screens.
She sings softly, whispers her secrets to you,
brings you into the first spring you ever remembered,
and the next and the next forevermore.

April rains.
April rains and watches my joy and my sorrow.
White sky, thin silver rain, a light like the music
of dreams' wings as they wait on the windowsill.
Everyone's waiting on the windowsill.
I'm waiting on the windowsill, looking through the sheen and the curtain,
into a room with a radiator all lit up with my happiness,
even as the rain washes away everything left of it.
Into the street who sang and danced alone outside the classroom window.
Into the rising earthy air, coming from the crocuses in the forest,
soft and slow and colored with hope,
later again to die and be washed away.
Into whatever first April rain anchored itself to my skin,
so forever I would wish to return to it.

April trusting. Rain to trust in. Water falling,
like the tears of goodbye,
bringing everything right to me, both the laughter and the pain,
and the water just to wash it all away.

(Zaz)

(Seyma Cicek)

"It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a loose hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway."
(Arundhati Roy)

(Laurena Segura)

A Line-storm Song by Robert Frost

THE LINE-STORM clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

Rainworks by Peregrine Church:

 

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I hope you liked that and I hope it made you enjoy the rain a little more! Again, sorry this is up so late.
If you have any favorite works of art about rain, please share them in the comments. I would love to see them.
See you Saturday (hopefully),
-Ariel