Poetry by JC Snyder

I’ve made it to post 101! Incredible! It’s a heavy day, grey clouds thick with rain, sidewalks still wet. Perfect day in a quiet coffee shop (except for the reggae!) to write. Think, write. All this alone time in my head is starting to effect my mental state…. thinking all about generations and families and “free will.” I have just finished a Taylor Caldwell book as well (not sure if anyone here would be familiar with her work). Clearly, I could continue to ramble but I think I’ll save it and maybe put these cluttered thoughts to better use later. Here, now, is poem from my great-grandmother Alice B. Johnson that I felt fitting for the day:

Small Girl in the Rain

The small girl, with her face uplifted to
The gentle summer rain, stands very still,
Her hands outstretched to catch each lovely drop
That falls in pattering enchantment till
She feels its mystic touch. She opens wide
Her laughing mouth, as if to quench her thirst
With dancing drops that struggle to elude
The questing tongue, stuck out to catch them first.

Her small heart quivers with her love of life,
With windswept rain and each small living thing…
Drawn to bright loveliness of bird and bloom,
And to the lowly earthworm’s tunneling
Beneach her feet. Small goddess of the earth,
With arms upraised, she strives as if to capture
Earth…sky…the magic of the wind and the rain,
And keep the treasure of this new-found rapture.

She feels the vibrant urgency above…below…
Not knowing what it is that stirs her so.