night train each window carries its own little rain — Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017
Yes, the rhyme feels good here! I love the verb “carries” at the end of L2. L3 contains the adjective “little”. Without it, I feel the verse would collapse: musically and in meaning. The word “little” is doing several jobs here.
We are at night and so many things could be carried along the way. Dreaming or awake, each drop of rain is like a living soul. We cannot carry all with us. What do we leave behind?
It makes me think of longing and the famous Basho’s verse comes to mind. Out of many translations, this one…
In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto.
(tr. Jane Hirshfield)
The train window is a receptacle of raindrops, the receptacle of what the person feels while looking through it. Longing is the feeling, mood, that comes to mind. We look at the raindrops and we look beyond them too. We look back and further. The past, the future, through present. I could go on for a while. Obviously, I departed from the analysis of the verse. But the cause of my wandering/wondering is Alan’s verse. And that’s what I expect from a good haiku. Going forward on the haiku path.
Thank you, Sébastien. On ‘little rain’ I’m also reminded of:
Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow the smalle raine down can raine Cryst if my love were in my armes and I in my bedde again!
—Anon which might even pass for an early English waka… ‘wilt’ or ‘wyll’ here is, I contend, not simply a future tense but also has the other meaning of “will” — Western wind, when you’ve a mind to blow, the drizzle can rain down…Christ! If my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!
I picture a soldier on duty guarding the ramparts…
Sébastien, and Keith,
Below, I wonder if Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is as familiar to Brits as much as those from the USA? I do remember The Song of Hiawatha for its metre and musicality at school, and it stuck with me as much as Ted Hughes’ The Thought Fox, which eventually kickstarted my haibun The Thoughtful Raven.
Brrrr, WWII English/British army uniforms, terrible in winter terrible in summer, rain or dry!!!
.
Sébastien,
Thanks re: “Yes, the rhyme feels good here! I love the verb “carries” at the end of L2. L3 contains the adjective “little”. Without it, I feel the verse would collapse: musically and in meaning. The word “little” is doing several jobs here.”
.
night train each window carries its own little rain
. And you are so right that there is longing, and also a train window “is a receptacle of raindrops” and “the receptacle of what the person feels while looking through it.”
Exactly! So brilliantly said!
,
I’m delighted that the haiku has had an impact on you. We sometimes can never know which of our poems does that.
Hiawatha was greeted as a triumph on publication but has since gone out of fashion. There’s a good critical article about it somewhere in the NY Times archives. It’s easily pilloried and parodied nowadays and has put more poets off Longfellow than it attracts, judging by personal correspondence. Which is a pity, for elsewhere he has some good lines as in The Rainy Day – one good line (into each life, some rain must fall) that has gone into everyone’s consciousness even if they don’t know where it comes from.
For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Another noteworthy work is The Bridge. Each of us has ‘stood on the bridge at midnight’ thinking dark thoughts, the last stanzas with the wonderful closing line being:
And forever and forever, As long as the river flows, As long as the heart has passions, As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection And its shadows shall appear, As the symbol of love in heaven, And its wavering image here.
That said, he doesn’t reach the heights every time….but few do.
night train each window carries its own little rain — Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017
On home postings I was a frequent late-night rail commuter homewards from the office, in the days before smartphones and in-train wi-fi. This verse speaks to me immediately of rattling through a dark wet night staring at a black window, feeling washed out. The little raindrops on the window would trail and bounce up and down, supported by the slipstream. Well observed by Alan. “Each window” can be read as a metonymy for each anonymous, blankly impenetrable passenger carrying their own problems. The scene delicately but unmistakeably conveys bleakness, as well as perhaps resigned acceptance of the way things are. Into each life, some rain must fall.
And the rhyme? It’s natural, and contributes to the apposite sound of the poem: the iambs and the trochees convey the rhythm of the coaches along the tracks, clackety-clack, hypnotic, dulling the senses. It helps to make this plain, fine verse memorable. Re-phrased without that simple but effective rhyme, I think it would lose a good deal.
The rain on and across a train window fascinates me. It seems to be its own world away and separate from the rest of the external rain dance!
I can’t even recall if this was a deliberate end-rhyme or if I thought I had no choice. Glad it worked out!
I’ve thought about this a lot ever since it was posted here…
night train each window carries its own little rain
— Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017 curated by Zee Zahava
I’ve often been fascinated by the movement of rain on train windows, and each of those little beads of water. Its emotional tug is cosseted/concealed/revealed within and perhaps between the words. We start with one of film’s possibly most iconic images, that of the night train, or any train caught late evening when the day ends short. It’s fitting as so many train scenes explode onto the scene before gathering smaller details.
e.g.
Auguste and Louis Lumière’s L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (1895), involved a a shot of a train pulling into the station, and audiences ran out of the screening room fearing it would come through the screen. La Roue (1923), a bold railway-line drama directed by Abel Gance was over nine hours until a short four-hour version was released in 2008!
And of course the end credits scene of The Railway Children is still spine-tingling, with its unusual ending. The film starred many great actors including Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins. Karen met Bernard, I’m very jealous, and he is/was as amazing offscreen as onscreen on television, song, or film.
POEM INTO SONGS: The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the1842 poem that coined the famous line, “Into each life some rain must fall…” and that nearly 100 years later the great British jazz singer dies from a Nazi parachute bomb during the WWII London Blitz. He had been inspired by the Longfellow line. A Little Rain Must Fall, 1930s jazz/blues track recorded by legendary Al Bowlly, reassuring listeners to keep a positive outlook when the sky turns gray. Another nod was Queen’s “Rain Must Fall” released on May 1989, as part of their thirteenth studio album, The Miracle. And slightly more recently “Some Rain Must Fall” by Jasmine Myra (2022) a contemporary jazz/instrumental track by British saxophonist Jasmine Myra, blending modern ambient jazz with melodic horn lines. And: “Where Rain Must Fall” by The Smashing Pumpkins (2023) A synth-heavy track written by Billy Corgan as part of the ambitious conceptual continuation of their1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Album: ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts (Act III) May 2023
Perhaps the greatest big picture right down to the smallest is rain itself, with all kinds of “the night train” a close second!
night train
each window carries
its own little rain
— Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017
Yes, the rhyme feels good here!
I love the verb “carries” at the end of L2.
L3 contains the adjective “little”. Without it, I feel the verse would collapse: musically and in meaning.
The word “little” is doing several jobs here.
We are at night and so many things could be carried along the way.
Dreaming or awake, each drop of rain is like a living soul.
We cannot carry all with us. What do we leave behind?
It makes me think of longing and the famous Basho’s verse comes to mind. Out of many translations, this one…
In Kyoto,
hearing the cuckoo,
I long for Kyoto.
(tr. Jane Hirshfield)
The train window is a receptacle of raindrops, the receptacle of what the person feels while looking through it.
Longing is the feeling, mood, that comes to mind. We look at the raindrops and we look beyond them too. We look back and further. The past, the future, through present.
I could go on for a while. Obviously, I departed from the analysis of the verse. But the cause of my wandering/wondering is Alan’s verse.
And that’s what I expect from a good haiku.
Going forward on the haiku path.
Thank you, Sébastien. On ‘little rain’ I’m also reminded of:
Westron wynde,
when wilt thou blow
the smalle raine down can raine
Cryst if my love were in my armes
and I in my bedde again!
—Anon
which might even pass for an early English waka… ‘wilt’ or ‘wyll’ here is, I contend, not simply a future tense but also has the other meaning of “will” —
Western wind, when you’ve a mind to blow, the drizzle can rain down…Christ! If my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!
I picture a soldier on duty guarding the ramparts…
Sébastien, and Keith,
Below, I wonder if Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is as familiar to Brits as much as those from the USA? I do remember The Song of Hiawatha for its metre and musicality at school, and it stuck with me as much as Ted Hughes’ The Thought Fox, which eventually kickstarted my haibun The Thoughtful Raven.
Brrrr, WWII English/British army uniforms, terrible in winter terrible in summer, rain or dry!!!
.
Sébastien,
Thanks re:
“Yes, the rhyme feels good here!
I love the verb “carries” at the end of L2.
L3 contains the adjective “little”. Without it, I feel the verse would collapse: musically and in meaning.
The word “little” is doing several jobs here.”
.
night train
each window carries
its own little rain
.
And you are so right that there is longing, and also a train window “is a receptacle of raindrops” and
“the receptacle of what the person feels while looking through it.”
Exactly! So brilliantly said!
,
I’m delighted that the haiku has had an impact on you. We sometimes can never know which of our poems does that.
Hiawatha was greeted as a triumph on publication but has since gone out of fashion. There’s a good critical article about it somewhere in the NY Times archives. It’s easily pilloried and parodied nowadays and has put more poets off Longfellow than it attracts, judging by personal correspondence. Which is a pity, for elsewhere he has some good lines as in The Rainy Day – one good line (into each life, some rain must fall) that has gone into everyone’s consciousness even if they don’t know where it comes from.
Longfellow also wrote and read what might have been one of the longest and most riveting after-dinner speeches* ever, certainly in rhyme, which I greatly admire and recommend: Morituri Salutamus —We who are about to die salute you. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44639/morituri-salutamus-poem-for-the-fiftieth-anniversary-of-the-class-of-1825-in-bowdoin-college
(* except that subsequent web searches reveal that he delivered it from a pulpit during the afternoon)
Ending with:
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Another noteworthy work is The Bridge. Each of us has ‘stood on the bridge at midnight’ thinking dark thoughts, the last stanzas with the wonderful closing line being:
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.
That said, he doesn’t reach the heights every time….but few do.
night train
each window carries
its own little rain
— Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017
On home postings I was a frequent late-night rail commuter homewards from the office, in the days before smartphones and in-train wi-fi. This verse speaks to me immediately of rattling through a dark wet night staring at a black window, feeling washed out. The little raindrops on the window would trail and bounce up and down, supported by the slipstream. Well observed by Alan. “Each window” can be read as a metonymy for each anonymous, blankly impenetrable passenger carrying their own problems. The scene delicately but unmistakeably conveys bleakness, as well as perhaps resigned acceptance of the way things are. Into each life, some rain must fall.
And the rhyme? It’s natural, and contributes to the apposite sound of the poem: the iambs and the trochees convey the rhythm of the coaches along the tracks, clackety-clack, hypnotic, dulling the senses. It helps to make this plain, fine verse memorable. Re-phrased without that simple but effective rhyme, I think it would lose a good deal.
The rain on and across a train window fascinates me. It seems to be its own world away and separate from the rest of the external rain dance!
I can’t even recall if this was a deliberate end-rhyme or if I thought I had no choice. Glad it worked out!
I’ve thought about this a lot ever since it was posted here…
night train
each window carries
its own little rain
— Alan Summers, Brass Bell September 2017 curated by Zee Zahava
I’ve often been fascinated by the movement of rain on train windows, and each of those little beads of water.
Its emotional tug is cosseted/concealed/revealed within and perhaps between the words. We start with one of film’s possibly most iconic images, that of the night train, or any train caught late evening when the day ends short. It’s fitting as so many train scenes explode onto the scene before gathering smaller details.
e.g.
Auguste and Louis Lumière’s L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (1895), involved a a shot of a train pulling into the station, and audiences ran out of the screening room fearing it would come through the screen. La Roue (1923), a bold railway-line drama directed by Abel Gance was over nine hours until a short four-hour version was released in 2008!
“When haiku get complicated – an attempt to explain along with W H Auden’s Night Train and the Royal Mail, and an owl, of course” – Alan Summers
https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/when-haiku-get-complicated-attempt-to.html
Trains. and cinema means different things to different people. One of the most famous train British movies of all time is Brief Encounter (1945).
Enjoy all the train snippets of the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuTmxJNYGho
And of course the end credits scene of The Railway Children is still spine-tingling, with its unusual ending. The film starred many great actors including Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins. Karen met Bernard, I’m very jealous, and he is/was as amazing offscreen as onscreen on television, song, or film.
POEM INTO SONGS:
The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the1842 poem that coined the famous line, “Into each life some rain must fall…” and that nearly 100 years later the great British jazz singer dies from a Nazi parachute bomb during the WWII London Blitz. He had been inspired by the Longfellow line. A Little Rain Must Fall, 1930s jazz/blues track recorded by legendary Al Bowlly, reassuring listeners to keep a positive outlook when the sky turns gray. Another nod was Queen’s “Rain Must Fall” released on May 1989, as part of their thirteenth studio album, The Miracle. And slightly more recently “Some Rain Must Fall” by Jasmine Myra (2022) a contemporary jazz/instrumental track by British saxophonist Jasmine Myra, blending modern ambient jazz with melodic horn lines. And: “Where Rain Must Fall” by The Smashing Pumpkins (2023) A synth-heavy track written by Billy Corgan as part of the ambitious conceptual continuation of their1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Album: ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts (Act III) May 2023
Perhaps the greatest big picture right down to the smallest is rain itself, with all kinds of “the night train” a close second!