Maybe they're all good days....
It's August, and after our exceedingly rainy July here in Juneau, we’ve now enjoyed several days of sun. But the exhilaration of the first few rain-free days is wearing thin, at least for some. After talking with a complaining friend, I remembered a poem I wrote several years ago—“Complaints.” It was one of thirty poems State Writer Laureate Jerah Chadwick selected for an on-line calendar for National Poetry Month, April 2006, which ran on the Alaska State Council On The Arts website. It’s the reverse of our current “problem” – but it’s the same old thing. Yes?
Complaints
Before it rained, we
rattled like dry leaves,
tasted like dust,
turned to powder
if you touched us.
We needed this moist
and magic cloak of tears
to shape us, give us form,
keep us from blowing away
in the first breath of wind.
And now we complain
that the rain never stops,
that we can’t remember
the glint of sunlight,
that we never need
dark glasses,
that all we see
are shades of grey.
This is how you know
we are human:
We never notice
when we have it good.