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Metaphysics, a poem

It rains.

It rains here and now.

It rains on the possible fat men in that doorway.

It rains in the desert.

It rains in the jungle.

It’s conventional.

It rains in the holes.

It rains in the shadows.

It rains vaguely here, with a fuzzy edge to the drops.

The colours of the rainbow shade into each other,

But on the whole we can tell one from another.

We universally hate the rain.

We mutter under our breath about rain.

It does not rain in every possible world.

Just in the actual one, here and now.

It rains on the concrete.

It rains on the objects.

It’s hard to determine why.

God help us zombies.

9 Comments

  1. Physicalist Physicalist

    When did you move to Seattle?

  2. It rained here as well, and now the cranes migrate southward. Shouldn’t that mean spring for your location and a happy shower rather than melancholy drizzle?

  3. Take up gardening, you’ll sometimes pray for rain, sometimes curse it.

  4. It’s all just an illusion.

  5. Jeb Jeb

    An old one you may find pleasing. Modern translation is often just given as goose so it is somewhat easy to miss.

    I have news for you:
    The stag bells,
    Winter snows,
    Summer has gone;
    Wind high and cold,
    The sun low,
    Short its course
    The sea running high;
    Deep red the bracken
    Its shape lost,
    The wild goose has
    Raised its accustomed cry;
    Cold has seized
    The birds’ wings
    Season of ice
    This is my news.

    ……

    ro gab gnáth

    giugrann guth

    translated above as ‘the wild goose has raised its accustomed cry’
    I prefer ‘usualness has taken hold of the barnacle goose call’

    ro-gab (take hold) gnáth (customary/usual)

    giugrann (wild goose/ barnacle goose) guth (cry/call)

    I am rather fond of it.

  6. Ian H Spedding FCD Ian H Spedding FCD

    Swap some of our drought for some of your rain.

  7. Mitchell Coffey Mitchell Coffey

    Zombies do not feel the rain, but act exactly as if they do.

    We who are men cannot tell zombies by how they react to the rain.

    Neither can zombies, and they act exactly as if they cannot.

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