The Dreadful Wind and Rain

loosely based off the traditional folk song with here and there a few twists

O the Dreadful Wind and Rain

(Loosely based on traditional folk song “The Dreadful Wind and Rain”)

 

 

Pt. I: The Two Sisters

 

There were two sisters walking down by a stream.  Quick, up off the ground and up on her feet the Little Sister raced the Other to pebbles ensnared in soil, caressed by cool waves.  That Little One came first, and that Older One close second.  Long, young fingers reached for a set of gravel chips before the older, shorter fingers stretched a single inch.  Harmonizing drips resounded from the skipping chips this Little Sister skipped across the water’s glassy lip.  Awkward rhythms, splatter-kher-plops then went the rocks the Older One sent… only slowly to mope like old, leaky boats.

Younger Sister’s hand upon the Older Sister’s back: through the sleeves of an undulating dress that the Little Sister sewed crept a bony shoulder that the Older Sister owned.  Little Sister felt it.  The Older felt it too.  And each adjacent arm of either silhouette accented each opposing neck.  Older Sister’s hand upon the Little Sister’s back: she so sweetly ’round the callow shoulder cupped her palm for warmth of calm.

            Rivalry restrained left the Older Sister weary, so to sit along the stream she requested of the sibling.  Weeping clouds were herded to a greying scene.  O the dreadful wind and rain.

There they reflected for sistersake, regarding the overlapping claps of waves tiny and grave.  Rain atop their heads and wind through their hair.

“I love you, sister,” it was no matter from whom it was said.  All that was cried from those rolling clouds beset by foul wind: “There were two sisters walking down by a stream.  O the wind and the rain.  The older one pushed the younger one in.  O the dreadful wind and rain.  She pushed her in the river to drown.  O the wind and the rain.  Watched her as she floated on down.  O the dreadful wind and rain.” 

To the old mill pond she floated on down, as without a sound the Only Living Sister watched.  Hand steady over eyes squinting towards the Sun that descended on a pulley while there ascended on the other side a sky of falling stars.  Sonnets sang the birds themselves to silence…as wispy twilight winds whispered with her weepy tresses.  She watched and watched in that soft, cotton dress that her little sister made with all her tired, red toil.  Yes, the Only Sister watched ’til that baby girl was gone: just a spot speckled streaming down the water oh so charmingly along. 

 

 

Pt. II: The Only Tune

 

The old miller fished her with his long, long, hook.  Yes, he brought this maid in from the crooked, bitter brook.  His fiddle he’s been missing for a long, long time.  For another he’s been fishing for a long, long time.  He’s sought after one to simply skim across the stream.  And here was this girl, one before he’s never seen – covered in thin blankets.  He watched all the red rest of her float on down the stream.  O the wispy twilight wind whispered through her weepy tresses and the rain tapped her forehead, “Wake up, wake up.”  O the sarcasm.

In the miller’s hollow head sprang a thought to spring a smile.  So on soft banks under shadows of a wilting tree he left the sad shape to dry a while…even so the dreadful rain would run through rampantly the refuge of the tree…

He found hanging in his darkened shed his cheerless singing saw.  It wouldn’t sing that day but would instead intend to grind and grate. 

He dragged into the room the swollen frame by its shoulders and said (sadly): Why did you make her all sodden and sour? 

He led within the dark an arrangement loud and dour: with one mallet saw he played upon each strong, white snare-o’-marrow, cursing the wind and the rain all the while (angrily, sawing through the soggy, windswept figure):  Why couldn’t you have both just come tomorrow?

And so on he cut.  He made a fiddle bow from her long, yellow hair.  You should have seen how hard it was to cut through all that there wet, knotty hair. He made fiddle pegs from her long finger bones.  And man gosh, those moist fingers… skin kept sliding ‘round – mangling those little worms is hard work you know.  He made a fiddle bridge from her own nose bridge.  Yes, I broke that nose first with my clamped hands both together tied like this, see? Then, it’s just a matter off separating it from its base with the help of my trusty saw.  He made a little fiddle of her own breast bone.  That sound, I’m unsure how to explain it…  The sound could mount a heart of stone.  And wow oh boy, you should have seen my face all lit up when I struck the first of its strings!

Her voice wet as the wretched rain.  Her voice somber as the wailing wind.  Her voice the fiddle’s strain.  And the only tune that fiddle would play:

 

O the wind and the rain.  O the dreadful wind and rain.

 

 

Pt. III: The Only Sister

 

Against the currents that tune would play, and the Only Sister heard from miles away her sister say, “O the wind and the rain.  O the dreadful wind and rain.”

There was one lonely sister walking down by a stream.  Clouds grim congregated for once in many days, all beset by foul wind.  She could hear her sister’s voice along the edges of the waves, swelled by the wind and the rain.  At everything now she finished forlorn in first.  And somewhere, from whom it was said it doesn’t matter, “I love you, sister.”  Then silence.  Her eyes followed the long, long road towards the long-gone sister: the end of an infinite current.  “I love you, sister.”  That day she kissed her sister’s fate.  “There was an Only Sister walking down by a stream.  O the wind and the rain.  The Only One pushed her lonely self in.  O the dreadful wind and rain.  She pushed herself in the river to drown.  O the wind and the rain.  No one watched her as she floated on down.  O the dreadful wind and rain,” said the rain to the wind, “She floated on down to the old mill pond.  The old miller fished her with his long, long hook, but threw back in the catch.  On and on that fiddle would play the Little Sister’s Lonely Tune as one day amongst the waves the Older Sister would soon dilute.  Completely… within thin blankets of water.

 

 

Author's Note

Pay attention to the prose's poetic qualities with rhyming and alliteration and such. When I heard this song from an classical composer by the name of Nico Muhly, I had no idea it was a traditional song... so my interpretation of it is from what was in his edited version of the original poem. I wanted to completely dissociate the two girls from the reader, providing little background information and possibly end up surprising or horriffying the reader to, well... if you don't know the story, then you'll see.