Now in the night, with the new rain falling about me,
(What though the warm light rings me in from the cold
Chill on my heart, the thin, immaculate weeping
Of new rain brings me the long heartache of the old.
Ah, the sneaky thing about new rain—it never quite feels new. Fresh drops, yes, but they’re heavy with memory. Rain is a courier service for the heart, delivering parcels from old heartbreaks right to your windowsill. The poet’s warm lamp can hold back the chill in his bones, but it can’t hold back the ache the rain drags in.
Old, old rain, that, cool on another autumn,
Fell on the shining leaves, carried them down;
Rain of a silver night in lyric April,
Glistening on the streets of another town.
This is where the rain gets tricky. It’s not just water—it’s a time machine. Every drop taps on the roof like a finger saying, “Remember?” Remember that other town? That other April? That other you? Rain pulls you backward, leaf by leaf, street by street, until you’re ankle-deep in memories you didn’t order up but can’t refuse.
O voice that delicately, beyond my windows
Insists, and will be heard, though I lie awake,
Why must you speak the thing I have put behind me,
Lest, bearing it without hope, my heart should break?
And here comes the midnight plea. The rain isn’t just weather—it’s a voice. Persistent, insistent, whispering the thing you’d buried. The poet begs it to hush, because if the past comes knocking too loud, it might crack the heart wide open. The rain is gentle but relentless, like grief itself: soft enough to slip in, strong enough to soak you through.
So what do we make of it, this New Rain? Thurston shows us how the world outside our window is never just out there. It seeps in, carries history in its drops, rattles the locked drawers of memory. Rain is never only rain—it’s time, it’s loss, it’s the stubborn voice of things we thought we’d left behind.
But I’ll add this: rain is also renewal. The very same water that drags up old aches also seeps into soil, feeds roots, and pushes up green shoots. The ache and the hope are in the same downpour. That’s the gift, even if it doesn’t feel like one at two in the morning.
That’s all I have to say, I will say no more.
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