Rainy Day Longing

I sat down this morning and looked out my bedroom window to the rainy water of Newton Creek and wished with all the melancholy of the gray day to be rid of this virus. “Alas” was the word for the feeling. Almost all sigh with a hint of french pity in it’s roots. The perfect word wanted more than just disappearance, the fantasy wandered to the sea and a beach party it seems. It felt good to imagine the future. In the wake of the reverie about God knows how many tomorrows from now, I had a longing feeling that landed again on “Alas.” However, giving my heart to words made me feel less alone.

Alas

Could the spring rain but wash this all away
And make a summer feast so full of love
It spills its season’s banks right into May!
And to pandemic’s fear, a jaunty shove,
Or surge of tide to float this out to sea.
Can falling rain replace the falling sky?
And dancing limbs crowd in again so free —
A swirling wash of salty sway and cry
Made loud and bright — bass, treble up to thump,
Feet, knees and necks, lips , breath and lifted hands,
All these abreast in rhythmic wave and bump.
I’d give up lots to get down with that band,
But May will not be long enough to say, “At last!”
So with mournful sigh (with those who mourn) I say, “Alas!”

March 28. 2020 — Image and Poem by Ben White

You can listen to me read it here