Of Course the Rain- Psalm 29:9
Everything has its own voice, its own story,
even this grey day long winter rain.
For today, even at mid day the sky lay like a heavy regret,
thick and leaden and unyielding with its
threnody of thunder echoing in the heavens.
Of course this rain has its own voice, its own language that speaks of
tears and joy and praise.
The chair that I sit in has discernible language
Its creases in the leather are runes that tell of books, music, and idle days.
That wine stain from years ago on the armrest,
a small ruby birthmark melded into the color of the leather,
still speaks of our anniversary and the ’97 Clerc Milon
and the bride of my heart that will walk with me Home.
A stone, the tall pines where the herons nest,
the fecund smell of the muck and the silt and the sawgrass in the marsh-
the arrival of the wood ducks in December- Oh! what a voice!
Even that soft spot of rot behind the paint where it’s wrinkled
Low in the corner of the door jamb; yes, decay certainly has a voice.
What is the sound of suffering so sharp that you fall to your knees
And gnaw on a towel to keep from screaming?
Or our usual quieter drone of despair?
And what of the sound of our old dear friend indifference with its
near silent cluck of the tongue and the imperious dagger unsheathed by the eye?
Let’s not forget silence, the loudest of all sounds in the house of the quarreling lovers
each carrying a sack of sword blades as they move to avoid each other.
It is the Lord’s hand stripping the forest bare.
His voice is in the increase and the decrease, the giving birth and the stripping bare
The tending to each soul in silent inexpressible chords of love
That will one day add our voice to the unending hymn of praise
And our hearts will lay open one to another… and to Him.
“The voice of the Lord leads the deer to calve and strips the forest bare,
and on earth, everything cries “Glory!”.
All things praise Him and each story is His story.
Nearer to us than our next breath is the Lord’s voice
calling us each one by name.
Scott Warren
