Versedays: Summer Rain by Amy Lowell

 The rains are a constant presence in South India. Sometimes I feel there is no season for them. It can rain anytime. I love watching the rain pouring down, as many of us I suppose, creating muddy little rivulets on the road, and making the leaves look fresh and green.

And that's how I thought this week's poem should be Amy Lowell's "Summer Rain," to denote the rain that occurs at the edge of summer. Lowell was an American poet who posthumously won a Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poems named "What's O'Clock." She was highly influenced by the Imagist movement, which is evident in today's poem, in its vivid imagery making the scene come alive. Lowell's lifelong relationship with actress Ada Dwyer Russell has been the primary subject of discussion in most articles on her, with Russell being described as friend and lover alternatively. Whatever it was, biographer Richard Benvenuto has pointed out that Lowell's "great creative output between 1914 and 1925 would not have been possible without her friend's steadying, supporting presence."

Hope you enjoy reading today's poem!

Summer Rain

by

Amy Lowell

All night our room was outer-walled with rain.
Drops fell and flattened on the tin roof,
And rang like little disks of metal.
Ping!—Ping!—and there was not a pin-point of silence between them.
The rain rattled and clashed,
And the slats of the shutters danced and glittered.
But to me the darkness was red-gold and crocus-coloured
With your brightness,
And the words you whispered to me
Sprang up and flamed—orange torches against the rain.
Torches against the wall of cool, silver rain!