I want the rain to stay

swetha.pn

March 11, 2022

I want the rain to stay so I can continue to cocoon in my silent thoughts.

Many years ago, as I walked past the neatly shelved rows of books in a public library, a random thought occurred. What if my book was among these seemingly endless rows of titles? And in the last decade, this living thought inside of me has only grown stronger.

Of course, I had no idea what I’d write to get published; I’m a serial quitter, and I’d always teased myself whether I’d ever be able to stick with a story and finish it without being distracted. Last year, in a ‘naive’ moment, I considered compiling my journal notes into a poem collective.

And this is how ”I want the Rain to Stay” came to be born. Of course, not without being met with many doubts first and road blocks next.

So, why do I want the rain to stay?

Even though rains normally bring a sense of melancholy, I’ve always enjoyed watching it – the slow song in the air, the odd smell of the dampened earth, and that nature look outright glamorous as being placed under an editing tool’s higher saturation. Everything looks alive as if the trees, animals, and the world are experiencing first love.

And when I’m alone with this pelleting rain, the minutes dissolve into white noise, leaving the stained windows (with their dew-dropped corners) my only ruse. This quiet cushions me with blankets of comfort and allows me to listen to the voice of the silence.

“ I want the Rain to Stay” is a compilation of poems and prose that weaves together three seemingly unrelated yet intertwined themes:

SILENT DOLDRUMS (despite the cacophony of thoughts)
A MAGPIE’s WARBLE (love and its consequences), and
HALCYON TIME (time, as it marches on)

I wanted the cover to be an illustration that blends the three ideas of silence, love and time into a cohesive whole, leaving the viewer intrigued. I’m a book lover, and I know that when I buy a book, I’m looking forward to an experience from cover to cover. That’s exactly what I had hoped my illustration should do – Take you into a magical realm and crochet a tale that you would like.

I intend that when you buy this book, you receive it as a present.

The three sections then, shall we?

doldrums: A nautical term that refers to the belt near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters.

Or in my thoughts – a wordless world.

I’ve noticed people maintain a silent facade during a storm of an overwhelming situation, or even when they are merely drifting through an empty afternoon. Within, however, there is an avalanche of thoughts, of two-sided monologues, and a ruckus of fragmented past, akin to the morning cooing of various birds on a single tree.

The poems in this section are largely about things like that, things that I’ve experienced or seen firsthand, some of which are inane, some encompass everyday chaos and others that simply demand my attention. While I appear silent on the outside, I am completely immersed in an internal debate that embraces all potential perspectives.

Love, what does it mean to you?

It’s about experiencing it for me, and I’d consider it my salvation even if it lasts a few minutes. I think two souls do not have to travel together to the end of the world to have an everlasting love; they may be separated by choice or fate, and yet are lovers in my heart – which is why the section discusses emotions as I know and feel it.

You might be wondering why of all the birds I chose a ‘magpie’ to be the symbol of love. Besides their intelligence, Magpies feel emotions like love and grief quelling the idea that only humans feel things. And you have to hear them sing – a sweet warble and if any bird can compete with a nightingale, it has to be a magpie.

I guess I find love in odd places – in a heart of unspoken words, in raindrops left behind after a stormy night, and in the magpie’s fine fluty song.

True love lasts, even when the underlying emotion fades.

Isn’t it true that most of us have two homes in our minds? Whether it’s a reminiscence of simpler times or a prediction of an unknown future, who knows who lives where?!

halcyon: denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

Even while I’m in the present, I’m nostalgically lost in recollections or replaying snippets from the past.

Like when am walking on the beach, I think back to my 8-year-old self leaping at the first contact with cold waves. I remember spiritedly scanning the sea for seashells because someone had said, “Whoever collects the most wins,” and all that mattered at the moment was to gather as many as possible and be declared a winner.

The poems in this section are about this time spinning its wheel through the past, present, and a hopeful future while I drift in mid-air like an unattached leaf.

And that’s all there is to the book – a rumination of feelings over a returning silence, a drifting emotion, or a fading memory

I hope it helps to quench your thirst for words a little.!

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