Spring is Home –– Night Rain

“There is nothing like a spring thunderstorm

with its crash and clamor

to clear your soul

and bring peace to your winter-weary heart.”

c e hollis

This morning the world is misty and mysterious as the sun rises. Everything is damp and warm. The trees begin to tease us with the first pale greens of spring.

Last night I sat alone in my rocking chair, shades drawn, and door latched against the dark. I listened to the rumble of a coming storm. It rolled with a sound like a bushel of turnips tumbling inside a clothes dryer.

The dark foreboding sky lit up here and there with minute flashes of coming lightning.

The rain came slowly at first with a tip, tip, tap of an absentminded grandmother half listening to an old song while she works. Soon it began to pick up the beat and the wind blew it in sheets across the roof. Rain on a tin roof has a special sound. Slap and rattle and rumble and drum.

Drumming began and continued until the booms of thunder subsiding moved from one end of the sky to another. The rain beat down and the thunder began to wan––to move away to rumble again with no booms and no shaking of the rafters.

The rain went back to its pitter-pattering soft and uneven, sweet and comforting. Sleep came with cricket song, rain dripping from oak leaves, and the soft tinkle of wind-chimes.