RAINSHINE

It's been raining every day of course, this being the rainy season, so every once in a while I go outdoors to enjoy some soothing rainshine, see how the lettuce is doing, what the tabascos think, how the greenbeans feel, tuck in the firewood, pull up some weeds, let the splendid thistles be, recall that splendid thistle poem by Ted Hughes, go around back and find some strange new and very interesting mushrooms growing on one of the shiitake logs in the mist, a new mystery for my day; see if the nascent ginger has anything green to say yet, nope, still too early; want some sunshine, the ginger roots indicate with a blank soil look. Then to the deck to check the plants in flats, the St. John's Wort Elixir doesn't seem too excited, but then that's a hybrid for you.

Out under the low gray-silk sky where it slides over the mountains there's only a sprinkling of light spray now, Lake barely visible, great gouts of mist rising from the many vales where the streams run down the mountain, the vapor taking advantage of this lull in the water's relentless fall to get some water back up there again; from out of the gaps in the bright green the fresh clean swathes of vapor rise pure and playful, like children running to their parent, the whole clan moving slowly and ponderously over, on its way to the Pacific.

RAINY DAY JEWELRY

spring rain -
many small voices
one big roar

Couple of times today went out into the torrent, the Rashomon rain, to check on things like rain-hammered tulips, narcissi and daffodils, mushroom buds and onion sets; several of the farm ladies out gathering sansai despite the rain, specifically today warabi (bracken fern: Pteridium aquilinum). (They got to all the fukinoto and taranome before me.) I had to pause at length to look at the energetic St. John's Wort, being surprised at how well it and the rain understand each other, clearly for a very long time, the Wort keeping a drop of its old friend close at the tip of each leaf, the silvery beads clearly content to remain there, quite unlike rain's general behavior on, for example, my head.