Satire of Natural Facts

Let us propose that the rain possesses the character of humankind, in this case my uncle (long deceased) who was afraid of fast moving clouds and who would hightail it by means of any available conveyance should clouds trouble his vision.

Accordingly let us imagine that the rain is afraid of its origins–a purely existential condition to be sure. The rain is afraid of its parents. The rain fears its ancestry. The rain believes it might go mad like its mother who was darkly flamboyant and who kept strange pets.

For this is the way of things. Even the rain can be perplexed. In good years and bad it has feelings and pish-posh if you think science can prove or disprove the matter. 

Science knows nothing. And the rain knows more than it claims in customary circles.

As I say, this is the way of things. Dull matter and its cohorts have plenty of ideas, bad though they may be. The rain for instance isn’t much of a thinker. In this way the rain is very like my uncle who we’ve already mentioned had a phobia about darkling clouds. (By the way, my uncle was a large man and to see him run from the clouds was certainly amusing. Many in our clan would gather on the dark lawn and watch him gallop terribly over the far hill. That of course is the cruelty of families. I am not much interested in that subject. Tolstoi and Faulkner and John Updike have largely exhausted cruel families as a matter of literary contemplation though the writers of memoir persist in mining cruelties in fealty to their own union.

Like I was saying the rain isn’t much of a thinker. You’re not supposed to say such things in these ecologically fragile times. One should I imagine venerate deus faber and treat natural facts with religious awe. I don’t know. I just know that the rain is stupid. Just ask your children if you have any. The rain is dull as a school superintendent as Mark Twain might say. The rain is dull as death.

There are of course poets who can speak on the rain’s behalf. But poets will speak on behalf of anything that doesn’t talk back. Pablo Neruda wrote an Ode to Salt. He said that he could hear the salt singing in its shaker–but poets will say anything for effect. I don’t believe salt is any smarter than the rain. The rain is as dull and predictable as a politician’s facts.

My uncle ran from the clouds but was fine about the rain. His problems resided in anticipation. Rain knows nothing about such matters. Rain is rain. Its an atomized, broadly flailing gravitational spindrift with cold hands.

You say: “He’d think differently if he was a farmer.”

Farmers don’t care about the rain save for its presence. For the farmer rain is nothing more than a necessary functionary. Like an accountant. Unless there’s something odd about you I don’t think you’d call an accountant for stimulation. (Doubtless accountants will write me. I shall not rest my case.)

To the farmer rain is just utility. They don’t want too much or too little. And they like it to stay dull.

You say: “He’d think differently if he was in a hurricane.”

Rain driven by a hurricane is still dull. Its the wind that’s feisty.

Oh the rain is dull alright. For competition it has only the fresh sawdust.

I feel it coming. Shortly now it will rain in Iowa City.

S.K.

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto