Two Years, 255 Posts

My first post was on September 19, 2008:

Why?

My sister Carol invited me to join Facebook. I began to write on it, but with only immediate family as an audience, and with almost no feedback there, I began to want more exposure.

For want of anything better, I've named this blog "Branches and Rain", the title of a recent piece I wrote on tropical storm Fay, which I borrowed from Arthur Rimbaud:

"I am the scholar of the dark armchair,
Branches and rain hurl themselves
At the windows of my library."

 But Rimbaud was a young Romantic when he wrote that.

My mother used to tell me, "Into each life some rain must fall".  It was from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.