DEAR MARCH...

DEAR MARCH by Emily Dickinson

Come in.  How glad I am.  I hoped for you before. Put down your Hat.

You must have walked. How out of Breath you are.

Oh, March, how are you, and the Rest. Did you leave Nature well?

Oh March, come right upstairs with me. I have so much to tell.

I got your letter. And the Birds. The Maples never knew you were coming. I declare, how red their faces  grew.

And all those Hills you left for me to Hue. There was no purple suitable. You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April. Lock the door. I will not be pursued. He stayed away a year to call.

When I am occupied. But trifles look so trivial, as soon as you have come.

That blame is just as dear as Praise. And Praise as mere as Blame.

Photographs 2026

 DEAR MARCH  by Emily E. Dickinson, is in the public domain. 

RAIN SWEPT...

RAIN in the COUNTRY by Margaret E. Sangster (1828-1912)

The rain fell like a song of hope on fields that had been dying.

It was a mother's loving kiss upon a wistful face.

                                

Tall trees that had been parched and dry 

broke into gentle sighing

And happiness lay like a smile upon the garden place
The house was very snug and sweet; the rain's kind slender fingers

Made magic on the sloping roof and smoothed the streaming pane.

                               

We lighted candles, slim and white, 

and, like a dream that lingers,

                               

They painted paths of drifting light 

against the silver rain.

The house was very sweet and snug.. its shadows caressing.

Yet for a moment we were swept away with sudden aching                              
For folk who do not understand....

that rain may be a blessing, who wander, shelterless, and sad,

                                 

across the rain-swept city.

Photographs 2026 Campbell River, B.C.

                      

 

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle wonderful" - e.e. cummings

BEFORE the RAIN by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907)

We knew it would rain, for all the morn

(Nom Nom looking in door every morning)

A spirit on slender ropes of mist

Was lowering its golden buckets down 

Into the vapory amethyst.

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens

                                                                                          (*a "fen" is a wasteland ecosystem)

Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers

Dipping the jewels out of the sea

To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain

For the Poplars showed the white of their leaves

The amber grain shrunk in the wind

And the lightning now...........

Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain................

                                     ".....Learning to dance in the rain..." -Vivian Greene

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle wonderful...." - e.e. cummings

Photographs 2025 

 *Thomas Bailey Aldrich was an American editor of the Atlantic monthly,  writer, poet and critic.