Clouds

“More of the same for the foreseeable future” said the weatherman, grinning like a possum with a mouthful of briars. But then again, no one ever accused him of shooting rainbows from his behind. 

For weeks now, a borderless cloud has been draped over our heads like a dirty wet sheet. I reckon even the heavens get broody. Whether or not it has anything to do with all the mean things I said about him last August, the Sun hasn’t shown his face around here for about 13 days. He has left us to the cold and the darkness and we find little pity or warmth in the bone face of the moon.

We’ve had so much rain lately that I need to install a bilge pump on my old pickup truck. Last week, I dug ditches around my house in an effort to drain some of the water, but I only succeeded in creating tributaries. My front lawn has become a bayou. I’m afraid that if my chickens don’t sprout gills they ain’t gonna make it. But on the bright side, the county finally lifted the burn ban.

These gray days make a fella melancholic. I miss color. Even that tacky flock of pink flamingos in the neighbor lady’s yard would be a welcome reprieve in this drab season, but they too are submerged beneath a topcoat of thick brown mud. 

The sounds are all wrong too. The crickets aren’t chirping. The birds aren’t singing. The children aren’t laughing in the street. I can’t even hear the metallic music of Old Man Johnson’s beer-can windchimes. Just the dull thump of water pellets assaulting the roof for hours on end. 

Winter is an annual memento mori. In the North, the earth lies under a plush linen shroud, cold and lifeless. Down here in the South, it is more like the world is buried at sea. The heavens cry, and the wind whispers its sad eulogy. And as the Apostle said, the whole creation utters a mournful groan. 

But the end is not yet. The Sun will rise again from his slumbering place, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber; rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. 

Soon that Greater Light that Rules the Day will put some blood into the ashen cheeks of the heavens, and they will blush at the wink of the morning dew. The turtledove will be heard in the land; the time of the singing of birds will come. The ice will melt, the waters will recede, and the dead will live again. 

So pay no attention to the weatherman. The Sun will come out again, and with him the children. When you hear the sound of small voices laughing in the streets while playing stickball, or the gentle thunder of tiny feet playing hopscotch on sidewalks, remember that, eventually, the Resurrection will chase all the clouds away.