Controlled by Mother Nature, rain senses the earth’s needs and gifts the sun-baked, parched and thirsty thistles, with reflecting refreshment. Vines weaving over wet-washed rocks cascade, like a bride’s bouquet over slopes of virgin white sand, in their search for droplets of dew. Skies above an orchard’s bed-side brook hear the brook babbling and gurgling like a happy infant. Flocks of airborne birds float on the nothingness and descend near the stream underneath the foot bridge. They dart into thickets of bushes in preparation for the rain storm.
Fleeing the winds and finding either low seclusion in the bush and brush; or, safety in the heights of the willows, creatures craving shelter seek secret places away from seasonal grey and gripping forces of thunder’s vibrations. The storm’s rage pelts fat barren bellies of boulders and white-washed gravelly rocks—once burning underfoot from sun. They’re sterilized by heat and by the purity thumping down and dancing on them in celebration of nothing more than a late afternoon’s quiet hours.
Patches of velvet moss drink fathoms of thirst-quenching rain like insatiable sponges. Tree roots which have just plain given up on hiding any longer rise out from crusty earth—like veins lying taught and sinuous under wrinkled skin of the old timers’ foreheads and old folks’ arms.
The storm splatters down on wooden stoops, and the brimming puddles drain in between rows of veggies to chat, bubble away, drench and drown to the singing of their own splish-linguage splash-language. The orchestrations of nature play a lullaby, but sleep must wait; this is an afternoon for rain to entertain, play its accompaniment to the mighty sounds of thunder’s drum rolls while lightning’s shrieking floodlights, daggering over the landscape, rouse the scarecrow’s shadowy, ghostly form.
Evening ebbs into early nightfall and birds are puffed in their hideouts among fragrant foliage. The folks enthralled by such a phenomenal storm shiver under their porch rooves and garden gazebos cloaked in flora-dense, napping Morning Glory.
As the storm lets up, still, there’s an eerie veil masking an anxious sky, and the weary elders linger—listening to the graceful mother of nature quench the earth with her sparkling refreshment… her wet satisfying kisses. Minutes pass and the creatures of habit watch as a glow appears, beyond the shining shingled rooftops, and a rainbow arcs it’s upside down happy-face smile.
With no tendency to rush the weather, wish for it to be over, or race indoors to shelter, a human instinct can, at times, propel one’s psyche to grasp the sensuality of dusk during and after a storm. Appreciating the intrigue found on the other side of Mother Nature’s personality…such as her fury, impassions us to be in awe of the whole storm-driven saga. She declares truth: many a day may pass before she enriches earth’s sod and satiates it again, nurturing it with minerals from the abundant and naturally refreshing rain. Anticipating the moments, capturing and planting them indelibly in their minds, folks gaze high into the atmosphere and note the eloquent rainbow’s powerful promises of discovery and new hope… after a storm.
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