Today's steady downpour, the mini floods in the streets of Manhattan, put me in mind of this:

Willow, Weep for Me

Same idea as "Cry Me a River,"
really: because nobody gives a fig
for your parochial pain, you enlist
nature to lament for you. All outdoors
commands attention. Of course, the other half
of the planet lies swaddled in sleep
and darkness, but all the outdoors you can

see from where you stand means to most people
all the outdoors worth mention. A window
box bristling with herbs isn't nature. God
made nature and humans ruined it. Thus
nature might lament its own demise
in its time free from hymning human grief.
The rushes would sway and stones dance in place

and the willow trail its mournful tresses.
There was always a twinkle in nature's
eye when it sang of Cindy's perfidy --
who'd lean an ounce of trust on Cindy? --
but to sing not as a subcontractor
but in one's own sad stead would set the whole
broken heart of nature to music.

William Matthews from: _After All_