The drizzles were followed by a little pitter-patter on the slate roof and then finally the fall of drops so big, they appeared stream-like. The clouds had just melted down in love of the sky while the wind carried them across. The tiny droplets of passion, pressed against the leaves, washed the rocks clean and made the saps damp. Of all the wet ones in that week, this particular day, it poured and poured to never stop. The pollen-laden bees hid under the giant umbrella of the yam leaves. The bigger feathered wings wrapped themselves and held on to the branches that swayed lesser. Men and women found shelter under the nearest roof and grazers stood by the shadiest of the trees.
The dogs of the neighborhood had stopped barking or did the voices disappear in the foreground of the tapping rain? It seemed that all the existing life had ceased to give way to the performance of the day. The afternoon had waited long to erupt into a cacophony of sounds like an applaud in unison. All in appreciation of the hour-long bachata of rains. Those fine droplets, laced together & fastened the land to the sky were acknowledged by the forest on the arrival from heavens to the land below.
Unexpectedly yet unsurprisingly, he stopped by to say hello. He would always come to check on Tara in the most dissonant of weather. Satirically like an emissary of the weather bureau, he always comes to somehow make it up to her for all the hours misspent sitting inside. Short visits, unforeseen drop-ins, and unanticipated treats, he never fails to astound Tara. Imprudently, I heaved a sigh of relief for I will be getting some time off to quickly run a coat of varnish on the little dresser meanwhile the little poky fingers will be busy with something more curious with D.
Merely minutes after I held the brush in my hands, I heard two overjoyed voices from the living room. After almost a week-long downpour, the showers came to a halt. The wind had settled abruptly and the swaying leaves stood calm. The water falling off the roof resisted to detach and that followed an eerie silence in the backwoods. Almost, unintentionally we had gathered together beside the backdoor. Looking out of the house, seemingly wary of something that the silence held, we knew that in an instant or two, a heavily orchestrated symphony of croaks and chirps would start. And there, in a split second, the lyrical BULBUL sang her song of love strung into a melody. She sat on the ginkgo branch above her nest and is the lead here in the backwoods. She sends out a reminder to the clouds who for a week melted away for the sky, that the creatures of the land, fall in love too.
She completed her song with several long tweets and shortly after, the rest of the forest joined in with all their squeaks, bugles, warbles, snorts, squeals, hoots, bellows, and trumpets under the lightly clouded sky. The forest applauded and so did the three of us.
What a celebration! Calls for a cup of tea 🙂
Muscari Lane 