It rained steadily all day....
By
Broadcast on BBC Radio
It has rained steadily all day.
Shut in three storeys up,
I begin to understand Noah's wife
And forgive her for being dull.
After all the feverish activity
Packing food for the passengers,
Seeing the bedded,
Taking on herbal remedies,
Filling the cracks in the Great Ark Operation
Leaving nothing to chance.
After all that woman's fussing
To be shut in
And see it rain steadily all day,
See the tide rising
And know that the fussing space was shrinking,
Hear her daughters-in-law whispering,
Patting their bellies,
Pleased to be in the family way.
Noah's wife, thinking about the months to come,
Counted new mouths to feed
Measured diminishing space,
And the rising tide of emergencies.
It rained steadily all day
By evening she had wound up her nerves
And got her tongue under control.
We have no record that she subsequently panicked
Or lost her temper or her knack with babies
And fractious men
And other animals.
She neither expected nor got much credit.
She didn't presage The Flood
Nor build the
It must have made Noah mad
To see her composure,
The way she looked when he reminded her for the
millionth time
That they owed their lives to him.
He wasn't much help when the babies came,
Or the lioness had cubs
He built the
She built survival.
When they docked on Ararat
Her daughters-in-law did the fussing.
She had grown heavy on her legs.
They were lighter than on embarkation.
She sat on Ararat
And surveyed the new creation
And kept her mouth shut
And her nerves under control
As had become her habit
Since the day it rained steadily all day.