We were supposed to get four inches of snow and ice last night. Schools closed in anticipation. Instead we got more rain. This morning our snow is reduced to tattered rags.
In the barnyard what isn’t ice is mud. What isn’t mud is disgusting thawing manure. The sky is dark. The mood is depressing.
I was driving home from the farm, thinking, “Could anything be more dreary?” when the clouds suddenly parted and a rainbow arched down to emblazon a birch in front of my windshield.
I remembered the poem Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
A minute later my light and rainbow were gone, but it was lovely to be reminded that behind the grim and gloomy clouds the sun still shines.
