Watch the Rain

 “I heard the sound of thunder. It roared out a warning. Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.”

Watch the rain from the shelter of your porch with your back yard gone to glittering emerald and, with nothing else to do, think about the blue-eyed son in Bob Dylan’s song and how, if you could access your earliest memory, it would be one of blissful floating.

And even now, even if this deluge should end, you might seek water. Maybe a dappled green pond where the minnows kiss the surface and the frogs swim their version of Potter’s ballet. Where if you stare into the murky depths long enough you, might scry tomorrow in the clouds above-below-in-the-water.

Or a laughing creek, chill mud between the toes, cottonmouths, like flood debris, bouncing with the current, their eyes unblinking and their fangs terrifying. You’re a gypsy or a pirate or any other sort of free spirit who doesn’t wear shoes or pay a cable bill. A lost child in the mermaid lagoon, a freebooter on the Black Pearl’s deck, except for that, of course, you need . . .

An ocean. Endless beckoning of blue, a thousand shades blending and shimmering and dancing all the way to the horizon. Tidewaters like a heartbeat, whoosh and pull never-ever ending, and how could you ever see it and doubt that water is, must be, our very life blood?

Bathe in it, baptize with it, quench your thirst and cool your brow. Die without it.
Watch the rain, the ceaseless, slanting, glittering fall, and try not to think about drowning. ‘What did you see, my blue-eyed son? Oh what did you see, my darling young one?’

Think about the way Noah sailed for forty days and nights and hasn’t it been raining that long now?

Think about tarot and how the cups are the most uplifting cards in the deck; and cups, after all, have everything to do with water. Cups filled to overflowing, cups raised in celebration, cups pressed to waiting lips. Half-empty is only a trick of the light, a misperception, and these showers are only a temporary hitch; maybe, months from now, rain will seem a blessing again.

Watch and think,  think and watch. Let the rain tattoo a song into your heart. Tie a ribbon around it and stash it in your ‘dry tomorrow’ folder, where today seems a lifetime ago.

---