Rain

It gets hot in July, and August is little better (and by little we mean not at all). Just as we begin to surrender to the exhaustion—the mirage of autumn where waits respite—the clouds gather, the air expects—and humidity suffocates us into holding our breath…waiting. It starts slow; a single drop falls to gravity, its weight too much to balance on the insubstantial precipice of sky. Another follows signaling the final surrender of cloud to earth. The heat breaks; we release our pent up breath, echoed by the thunderous sigh of creation.

We’re the plants. We’re the wilted. We’re the dry dust ground to fine powder. We open, slowly at first, scared by the violent torrent—the foreign, almost forgotten miracle of monsoon; but we open, the water distilling on our parched perspectives, restoring our stature, adjusting each step with bare feet and mud puddles.

The world always looks better after a rainstorm. Golden sepia enriches—enhances—a new lens curbing the harsh, direct gaze of the sun into a promise…a promise of color, spectrum, and each piece together. People look better too. Less burnt. Less burdened. Quiet. Conscious of the sacred moment after cleansing.

We would like to take a walk, visiting each plant, each person, knowing they’ve all been touched—that the rain comes for everybody. We would like to call hello to people we don’t know—the rain likes them, maybe we would too. We would like to cup the dew-scent in our shaped palms and store it away for December. But we don’t. We inhale it all now, greedy. And we stay inside with the door open…