So Maybe I Don't Embarrass Him Too Much?

Jock came home today with an English assignment to locate any published poem other than "The Raven".

Here is the one he found:

After The Rain

After the rain, the world seems so new
My surroundings have changed, and my thoughts have, too.
The air all around me smells fresh and clean,
The tree leaves and grass look a deep, dark green.

After the rain, when the mist has cleared,
I can face my "mountains", and the thoughts I have feared.
I can tackle the obstacle that in my path may lay
And disregard the old fears that the rain washed away.

After the rain, with the dusk in my sight,
I can hear the windsong in the still of the night.
Mother Nature seems happy; it's her song in the air,
So I stand - listen - and sing along if I dare.

After the rain, when the world falls asleep,
Reality beckons, back to it I creep.
Without my blurred vision, the view seems strange,
Because after the rain, the world has changed.


Do you want to know where he found it? In a memory book my mom created for me about a dozen or so years ago. This poem had been published in a national creative writing magazine for teenagers, about 20 years ago.

I wrote it. When I was 16 and a sophomore in high school, and inclined towards things both dramatic and symbolic in my self-expressions.

Jock could have found any poem on the Internet, from any truly famous, truly gifted writer. He could have done what the majority of his class will probably do, and simply find something by Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He certainly could have found one that everyone would have heard of.

He chose to bring one in that his mother wrote and had the good fortune to have published when she was his age. I am speechless. I am amazed.

I am honored.