It is not August yet but I wanted to post this poem by Derek Walcott because in stanza four there is a line that stands out timelessly (besides rain in summer is an excellent metaphor for the dampness we feel when a bright moment has been spontaneously spoiled in our lives): "Don't you know I love you but am hopeless at fixing the rain?" I have been thinking lately about how and why we hold grudges against each other, as well as how sore we are at times about the unfixable things which happen between us or around us; how frustrated we are when things are not perfect or as we what them to be.
"Dark August" by Derek Walcott
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
she does not come out.
Don't you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you
© Derek Walcott
-
It might be easier to be compassionate toward one another if we recognize that everyone has rain in lives. Sometimes we cannot see what is leading to the ruin or the pain but it is there in every person's path. Perhaps we hold grudges because as Rumi pointed out "even if you hate me, at least your attention is still on me." We hold a wound because we don't want to let go of our emotional attachment to a person or memory. Maybe we don't have to. Or it could be that the grudge is teaching us where we might try to be more forgiving and compassionate toward ourselves as well. Maybe the point of entry into our soul, which is bitter and hard, is the right one. When we come to the gateway of understanding, it's like the last two stanzas of "Dark August":
*
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you
*
"All will not be as it was, but it will be true..." When I read that line, many things stir in me, and I find it leaves me speechless to think there is as much love in the ruin and rain, as there is in the temple and sun. I discover I am overwhelmed by such love and knowing that it turns out I have been loved beyond that which I once imagined. Dare I say with a smile, that even when you hate me, you are still loving me as deeply, maybe more so, than you did when we were laughing?
It is possible.
*
dreamstime image: hibiscus flower after the rain - by irabel8
