"For Blessing," by Marilynne Robinson

In this excerpt from Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead — here laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure — the narrator (Reverend John Ames) is writing a letter to his young son, recalling an incident in which the reverend noticed a young couple walking near his house, just after a summer rain.

The sun had come up brilliantly
after a heavy rain, and the trees
were glistening and very wet.

On some impulse,
plain exuberance, I suppose,
the fellow jumped up
and caught hold of a branch,
and a storm of luminous water
came pouring down on the two of them,
and they laughed and took off running,
the girl sweeping water off her hair
and her dress as if she were
a little bit disgusted,
but she wasn’t.

It was a beautiful thing to see,
like something from a myth.

I don’t know why I thought of that now,
except perhaps because it is easy
to believe in such moments
that water was made primarily
for blessing, and only secondarily
for growing vegetables
or doing the wash.

I wish I had paid more attention to it.
My list of regrets may seem unusual,
but who can know that they are, really.

This is an interesting planet.
It deserves all the attention
you can give it.

+ Marilynne Robinson