Send My Roots Rain

Here's a poem that's been on my mind over the past several days:

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leaved how thick! laced they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

Them; birds build--but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

 ~Gerard Manley Hopkins 1918

Now for a little translation.  Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, and he sometimes used his poetry to complain to God.  This is one of those complaints, like a pleading prayer you might offer in a time of despair.  Hopkins' use of language and imagery is amazing, but the simple gist of what he says is this:  Why do good things happen to bad people?  And why is my life (despite all my good efforts) such a struggle?  

That's a refrain we all sing from time to time.  And sometimes it's tempting to wallow in self-pity, and perhaps even question God's role in it all.  Hopkins takes it a bit further, saying:  I know you're my friend, but with a friend like you, who needs enemies?  ("Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost defeat, thwart me?")  Hopkins ends the poem by describing himself as "time's eunuch," pleading with God to send his roots rain.  In other words, I'm not producing anything here, so please end this drought!     

Can you relate?  I know I have "send my roots rain" moments.  Living in the desert as I do, the metaphor hits home.  I remember moving here over a decade ago.  It was the first weekend in July,  and as my husband and I stood outside the Phoenix airport, waiting for a shuttle in 120 degree temperatures, I wondered what we had done.  We confined ourselves like prisoners in our tiny air conditioned apartment, waiting for the moving truck to deliver our life.  Even then, for months after, we rarely ventured out in daylight.  The Arizona heat was overwhelming, and I recall looking at the plants in that baking July heat and thinking that they all looked so hostile and angry!  As if they were saying, I just dare you to touch me.  I will poke you, scrape you, inflict whatever harm I can.     

The years have passed, and I have come to see the beauty in this landscape.  It truly is amazing that those angry plants can live on so little water and, given even a little of what they need (send my roots rain!), will explode in an array of blooming colors that leaves me awe-struck with the beauty of it all.  We are enjoying a rainy season in Arizona now, and even the angriest plants look cheerful.  The rough, scraggly-brown foothills around us are blanketed in green, and wildflowers of all varieties are just biding their time, waiting to emerge to put on a show -- along the freeway, in the open desert, untended, unexpected, delightful.

Just think what you could be with a little rain for your roots.