After the Rain

One expects these things in April - clear skies at sunrise with only a few confetti colored clouds to highlight the rim of morning's bowl, then clouds rolling in and dispensing fine light rains that last for much of the day.  It has been an unusually dry springtime here, and the rains are much needed.  Besides, the sound of rain through the open windows of the little blue house in the village is a happy thing.  I pause now and again in my toings and froings to listen and rejoice that the world is greening up again.

After yesterday's rain, Spencer and I went for a long walk in our own sweet time, peering intently into hedgerows and neighborhood gardens to see what was blooming, and we stopped to admire a friend's colony of blue irises - so intensely hued that they could be seen from almost a block away.  Last autumn, Hannah placed old grates and oven racks over the sleeping bulbs in her garden, and protected from the predations of village squirrels, every single one came up this year.  Up close, the blooms were gloriously dappled with raindrops and swaying gently in the breeze.

The Greek word iris (plural irides) means rainbow, and is also the name of my favorite springtime goddess.  Iris personified the presence of the rainbow on Mount Olympus and acted as the messenger of the gods, carrying their missives between heaven and earth along the colored arches that grace us with their presence after the rain.