a window covered with raindrops

Saul Leiter

Unplanned and unstaged, Mr. Leiter’s photographs are slices fleetingly glimpsed by a walker in the city. People are often in soft focus, shown only in part or absent altogether, though their presence is keenly implied. Sensitive to the city’s found geometry, he shot by design around the edges of things: vistas are often seen through rain, snow or misted windows.

“A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person,” Mr. Leiter says in “In No Great Hurry.”

from 

here



.

onto the window, the rain

 Outside the Dune.

 Alone the house, monotonous,
 onto the window,
 the rain.

 Behind me,
 click, clack,
 a clock,
 my forehead
 against the window.

 Nothing.

 Everything passed.

 Gray the sky,
 gray the sea,
 and gray
 the heart.


Arno Holz, Drearily trickling drizzle 
tr. Walter A. Aue

Draußen die Düne.

Einsam das Haus, eintönig,

ans Fenster,

der Regen.

Hinter mir,

ticktack,

eine Uhr,

meine Stirn

gegen die Scheibe.

Nichts.

Alles vorbei.

Grau der Himmel,

grau die See

und grau

das Herz.

Trostlos rieselndes Tropfen 

.

rain window against death

She went upstairs, step by step, very slowly. When she came to the
bedroom door with the jugs and glasses on the table outside, she paused.
The sour-sweet smell of illness slightly sickened her. She could not force
herself to go in. Through the little window at the end of the passage she
could see flamingo-coloured curls of cloud lying on a pale-blue sky.
After the dusk of the drawing-room, her eyes dazzled. She seemed fixed
there for a moment by the light. Then on the floor above she heard
children's voices—Martin and Rose quarrelling.
"Don't then!" she heard Rose say. A door slammed. She paused. Then
she drew in a deep breath of air, looked once more at the fiery sky, and
tapped on the bedroom door.
The nurse rose quietly; put her finger to her lips, and left the room.


There were so many of them in the room that she could get no further than the
doorway. She could see two nurses standing with their backs to the wall
opposite. One of them was crying—the one, she observed, who had only
come that afternoon. She could not see the bed from where she stood.
But she could see that Morris had fallen on his knees. Ought I to kneel
too? she wondered. Not in the passage, she decided. She looked away;
she saw the little window at the end of the passage. Rain was falling;
there was a light somewhere that made the raindrops shine. One drop
after another slid down the pane; they slid and they paused; one drop
joined another drop and then they slid again. There was complete silence
in the bedroom.

Is this death? Delia asked herself. For a moment there seemed to be
something there. A wall of water seemed to gape apart; the two walls
held themselves apart. She listened. There was complete silence. Then
there was a stir, a shuffle of feet in the bedroom and out came her father,
stumbling.
"Rose!" he cried. "Rose! Rose!" He held his arms with the fists clenched
out in front of him.
You did that very well, Delia told him as he passed her. It was like a
scene in a play. She observed quite dispassionately that the raindrops
were still falling. One sliding met another and together in one drop they
rolled to the bottom of the window-pane.


from The Years, by V. Woolf


.

the rain wants to kill itself

With its fingers the rain stains your window and mumbles.
It wants to come in and kill itself.
I see you are in bed and couldn’t care less.
In the dark. Naked. Couldn’t care less.
Your hair loose. Your thighs spread open.
And there, in plain sight, black moss!
Your left middle finger busy, busy!
Villain, searching for the red crest.
While golden honey already oozes.
You call me from your delirium tremens.
Me already changed into a crow.
I fly down into your lap and peck, peck.
And then in my beak carry the caught fish away,
to go play cards and drink.
While the rain with its fingers
makes stains over your windowpanes and mumbles,
counts its beads,
wants to come in and kill itself.


Milan Djordjević
tr. Charles Simic

.
.

through the wet window

Mary Frampton, 1963
info

.
.

drops of rain

Clarence White, 1908


..