Through the eyes of a poet -- Gentle rain

It must be spring.  Compared to last year, I’m early in posting about a poetry book rhapsodizing about the poetic qualities of rain.  But spring seems to have arrived in Calgary rather early this year and it’s been really difficult not to tuck away the snow shovels and winter boots.  Calgary is renowned for getting large, wet dumps of snow even into May, so the shovels remain out and the winter boots remain accessible, shoved into the coat closet.

Nevertheless, I’m really hoping that precipitation in the near future will be of the non-white, fluffy kind.

“Rain plops. It drops./It patters./It spatters.”

Raindrops Roll by April Pulley Sayre is a beautifully produced book of photographs and words.  With lots of macro shots of insects, leaves, flowers, grasses and webs we can see how the rain falls, lands, pools, soaks in, clings, magnifies, reflects and eventually, dries. I love zoomed-in shots that show such detail.

“It thuds./Makes mud./It fills./It spills.”

The close-ups are of creatures and objects found in a backyard garden which makes is seem like anyone can observe the natural beauty of a gentle rainstorm and its aftermath.  The rhyming is simple but dynamic and lets us see and feel what falling and fallen rain is like.

“Yet raindrops remain./They gather./ They glob together.”

At the end, there are a couple of pages that explains a little more about the science of water,  from the physics involved in making a drop of water, how water magnifies and reflect things about them, and how rain connects to the water cycle.

“Raindrops reflect./They reveal./Raindrops highlight what is real.”

A terrific classroom book for the elementary grades connecting science and language arts.

“They linger in lines./And when the sun shines…/raindrops slowly dry.”