send my roots rain...

It's been a while. I know. And I haven't been taking many tree photos. I know.

I've been away. Visiting in Toronto. The CN tower, Steamwhistle Brewery, The Green Room, 98 Chandos.

And then I've been working. Literally from the hour I got off the plane. 10-6 at the print shop, everything else outside of sleep is allotted to marking first year English Lit papers over the next week or two. In the midst of relatively painful grammar and writing, I pulled out a line from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "Thou Art Indeed". I like Hopkins, even though he's someone I forget about more often than not. There is one of his poems that has stuck with me since I first read it though. It's called "Windhover" and its worth a look if you get a chance. But that is not the poem that captured me tonight. The last line of "Thou Art Indeed" caught my eye for some reason. It's rather simple. In my opinion, Hopkins has written far more beautiful things. But for some reason, it grabbed on to me.

"Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain"

I have a lot of speculation about what that could mean to me and why that in particular stuck in my mind...but I think I'll leave myself to mull over that privately for now.

back to marking.........