Tag Archives: rain

2026, Day Book, everyday words, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, prose

Daybook 2026 // Winter 1.14.26

Doodle by Mick Parsons

Rainy Wednesday. Turning to cold and sleet.

Take a beat and talk to the old woman with one eye hobbling up and down the sidewalk calling out for her dog, Rosie. Big white dogs wearing coats wander off too, but I tell her, mine tend to come home when they get bored, smelling of death, full of love and needing water. I have no words of comfort left other than “wait” or “stop waiting,” depending on the situation. I live these days in the gradual disconnecting of things. There is too much comfort in the swing of the second hand on a cheap battery powered clock, the tinny speaker sound of a hand-held battery powered radio kicking out a really quite lovely acoustic and piano cover of “I Would Die for You” by Prince and the Revolution1.  I once thought it would someday bother me when the radio I grew up on was covered by someone too young to have been born when I first cranked the dial to scream out lyrics surrounded in a loud, auditory silence. Now I just appreciate the quality of a lovely voice and thoughtful composition, and the gaining speed of obsolescence. 

and 
one
and
two
and 
three
and
the 
dogs
they 
come
home
the
smell
of
death
& 
love 
n' 
want
ing
a pat
a bowl
of 
water
love
love
love
and 
four

  1. Rose Cousins, Bear’s Den & Christof van der Ven (2019) ↩︎
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2026, Day Book, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, prose

Daybook 2026 //Winter 1.9.26

I dropped my apple this morning and nearly choked on a cough drop. These, too, may become the symbols of an age; it certainly feels like symbols of my age, which is best classified as “Young but Feeling It.” Some apples are hardier than others. Like my mother’s mother, I favor tart pie apples. They remind me of the ones that used to grow on the trees in my mother’s parents’ yard, and long conversations over gin rummy about Jesus, back before I started being people’s great disappointment. 

It’s raining and from my desk in the basement, it could be a spring rain. It isn’t. The weather has been kind this week. but all that means is that somewhere on the other side of this rain is cooler weather. Tart pie apples still taste like spring when it is winter raining. Cough drops always taste like winter.

January 
rain
tastes
 like 
cough 
dro
ps tart 
pie apples
the expect
ation of fall
ing and becom
ing just 
a bruised apple
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2025, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry

it sweeps in riding on a blanket

these rainy nights we contend and pray
the ceiling holds; keep faith in the bones
of this old house, a warm cup of tea, 
fighting a cough and a chill -- October
sweeps in riding on a blanket 
of multicolor leaves caught 
in the process
of falling
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