Yesterday I thought I’d melt like the infamous Wicked Witch of “The Wizard of Oz” story. I was out in the midday sun, pulling weeds out of my suffering flowers (never said I was smart) and after a few minutes of bending over, just about crumpled to the deck. I decided to beat a faltering retreat into the air conditioning.

I collapsed into a chair feeling defeated and frustrated, and muttered, “ Oh, please God, not another horrible drought like last summer.” The plea was heartfelt. I hate to see crops withering, rivers dwindling to mere brooks and brooks going completely dry.

Standing under a blazing sun in a drought-stricken land gives me an eerie feeling like impending doom. Nothing can live without water!

I swear! Strange, desperate-looking frogs keep showing up at my garden pool, and the birds are having pitched battles to get a little drink at the birdbath! They seem to have stopped taking baths. Trying to conserve water I guess.

So, here we are, sweltering and choking on dust, hoping and praying for a couple of days’ worth of cool, gentle rain, while in the Midwest they’re drenched with unrelenting downpours and drowning under the worse floods ever recorded in that area. Their sources of pure water have been befouled or damaged, and drinking water is running dangerously low!

The suffering of these unfortunate people— being surrounded by water, but none to drink— makes me think of the poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that relates the supernatural events experienced by a mariner on a long sea voyage. The mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding, and begins to recite his story. The wedding guest’s reaction turns from annoyance at being delayed to fascination as the mariner’s story progresses.

The old sailor relates his horrendous sailing experiences including being becalmed without a breath of wind on the wide ocean under the blazing tropical sun, dying of thirst and having no water to drink. Here are a few lines:

“Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a Painted ship upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.”

The wedding guest is held spellbound by the mariner’s long tale of hardship and terror and his final rescue from almost certain death back to life. He intones these famous lines as he leaves:

“Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

So what’s all that got to do with rain or no rain? Well … I don’t know … could it be that maybe our prayers for rain (or whatever) aren’t answered because we don’t prayeth well ‘cause we don’t loveth well? Oh, well, just a thought.

T&D Columnist Rush Button can be reached by e-mail at buttonrl@aol.com or by phone at 803-534-3724.

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