Let it Rain

The rain comes down in sheets, then cuts off, then drizzles, then falls so quiet you're not even sure it's here, and you have to watch a puddle in the street for ripples, and even then, it's hard to tell. Is it run-off from the overwhelming maple? Is it your eyes?

When it rains like this, you sometimes wish you were at home, and your dad was still farming because when it rains like this, everyone is happy. The crick swells, washes out the old and the dead. Water runs over the farm to market road, and you can become trapped. It's OK, because everyone is happy.

But you're a city kid now, and you're proud because your lawn is rocking the block, because when you reseeded, grass actually sprouted and it's now thick and lush, even if it's a different, brighter, green. And even if the peonies are too heavy, too drenched, to stand up straight, they bloomed.

They bloomed.

In the gray mornings, you like to sit out on the front stoop, just to look at the grass, and your flowers. You worry because your snapdragons aren't opening up like you want them to, and then you think how lucky that I worry about snapdragons. And then your bamboo windchime knocks hollow against itself, and you forget you had anything to worry about at all. Because it's raining, and that, in itself, is more than good or needed or wanted.

It's a miracle.

And if you aren't from here, if you didn't grow up next pines and prairie, and lakes and riverbanks, and sagebrush and switchgrass, and cattle and antelope, you don't know rain.

You want to store this water while you can.