Oct2

let it rain.

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at the moment of kickoff

at my grandson’s game

the skies opened up

serving up a main course

of biting sideways rain

with a side dish of high-winded temperature drop

no lighting or thunder

so the game went on

 having just taken the umbrella out of my car

at least there was a rain jacket still on the seat

yet quickly apparent that it wasn’t built

for sudden deluge-level weather

nor were the fans’ soon to be inside-out umbrellas

but they kept on playing and playing

while they didn’t win

they stayed in the game

as did the families/fans

showing a lot of heart

 when we got to the car

as we  made our way out

and onto the road home

the weather left

just as quickly as it had arrived

not one more drop of rain fell

not a wisp of wind was blown

not a chill in the air to be found

as we dripped and dropped in the car

laughing about the crazy storm

 so looking forward to hot showers, warm food, and cozy, dry pajamas

our just desserts

after a game

well-played by all.

—

‘the best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.’

-henry wadsworth longfellow

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74 responses »

  6. Look at the unexpected place the Longfellow quotation is from (https://blog.oup.com/2017/05/henry-wadsworth-longfellow-birds-poetry-immigration):

    Longfellow kept careful track of the changes in his environment. In one of his most prescient and, yes, political poems, “The Birds of Killingworth” (1863), a poem so outspoken that it would have made [Senator Charles] Sumner proud, he imagined what nature would be like if all the birds were gone. In Longfellow’s clever fable, the citizens of the fictitious New England town of Killingworth decide to rid their fields of all marauding birds. Profit is not the only motive at play. The Parson, for example, simply loves to kill: “His favorite pastime was to slay the deer / In summer on some Adirondack hill.” The pompous Squire is too full of himself to think about the consequences of his actions, while the ponderous Deacon is so proud of his ability to forecast the future that he’s not worried about inaction in the present. At a quickly convened town hall meeting, the only one willing to defend the birds is the local schoolteacher. “You slay them all! And wherefore?” The dismal vision that he paints for his listeners anticipates the dystopian story that opens Rachel Carson’s famous bestseller Silent Spring (1962): “Think of your woods and orchards without birds! / Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams.” But he doesn’t convince anyone, and the “ceaseless fusillade of terror” commences, “a slaughter to be told in groans, not words.”

    What is left is an ecological disaster site. The grounds have turned ashen, caterpillars rule the garden beds, and the beetles, with no one to keep them in check, have seized the farmers’ fields. Come spring, the anxious citizens of Killingworth have begun re-importing birds from elsewhere. At the end of the poem, the birds sing again, but to the experienced ear it seems as if they were mocking the people.

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  18. I hope your grandson gets away healthy. My son is a soccer coach. The past week he came home three times drenched in rain. The temps were low and we also had winds. Ugly. Since yesterday he has had a heavy cold but bites through bravely.

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  25. Been watching our son’s games first as a player and now as a coach for the last 19 years. Sometimes the weather was miserable, but I loved it all. His team played a game in Montana where the snow was a foot deep in some places and spectators were shoveling during the game so the refs and players could see the lines on the field. The only weather they don’t play football in is lightning.

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