After an unseasonably mild winter we are spoiled. Now we have a week or more of rain. Having started planning my summer garden I stand at the door, frustrated, and watch it run down the hillside where it forms little pools that the dogs jump in before running back inside and hopping onto the white sofa. Nothing to do but appreciate it I guess. I am going to make a Shepherd’s Pie and settle in. Perhaps I will even pick up a book and read. Something classic. About, well, rain.
These are my two drops of rain
Waiting on the window-pane.
I am waiting here to see
Which the winning one will be.
Both of them have different names.
One is John and one is James.
All the best and all the worst
Comes from which of them is first.
James has just begun to ooze.
He’s the one I want to lose.
John is waiting to begin.
He’s the one I want to win.
James is going slowly on.
Something sort of sticks to John.
John is moving off at last.
James is going pretty fast.
John is rushing down the pane.
James is going slow again.
James has met a sort of smear.
John is getting very near.
Is he going fast enough?
(James has found a piece of fluff.)
John has hurried quickly by.
(James was talking to a fly.)
John is there, and John has won!
Look! I told you! Here’s the sun!
-A.A. Milne, “Waiting at the Window”, from Now We Are Six, 1927
You know what? Christopher Robin rocks. You know he does. I’m going out.
Where is my big black umbrella? Has anybody seen it?
