Entry 2: Response to "Rain" by Peter Everwine

When I first read this poem, I did not pay much attention to all the sounds that are described until I heard the piece being read aloud. It was then that I could imagine the sound of wind gusting in the trees before a heavy rainfall and the long echo of a loon's call drifting from across the lake while rain pitter patters on the roof of the tent overhead. The poem contains many water sounds: rain drumming, water lapping, an unnamed emotion surging against the heart (I can't help but think of powerful ocean waves when I hear the word surge). It is quite clear that sounds are the root of memory here, but there are other senses used as well. We can imagine the smell of wet clay on the wind and we can also visualize what the speaker in the poem is seeing outside his open door.

The passage of time in the poem was what stood out to me the most. The scene opens toward evening when everything is growing dark--evening is usually a meditative time for one to think about the recent or distant past. The late hour of the day and the age of the speaker are relative. He is an old man in the late years of his life, recalling a memory of his father that is sixty years old. His father is long gone and it appears that he has probably outlived most or all of his closest friends. It is hard to determine if he is lonely or not, just as he could not decipher for himself whether the loon's call was an expression of loneliness or a serenade to the wilderness. The poem captures the mystery of the inner self as well as the mystery of nature.