Rain

In Spanish it is lluvia and in French pluie, yet three words for it still do not adequately describe the mystery of water as it falls separately and then finds a new beginning. It is scientifically explainable, of course, but it has this ineluctable expression which cannot be found in words except perhaps with careful choosing. Yet I will use this ordinary word to describe, even though at times rain is not simply rain, but thick with meanings. The kind that catches on a wild coast is almost brittle with salt, and this occasional taste of the ocean is filled sometimes with longing to be at sea or in a remote part cast off from the mainland. Then there is the kind that is spontaneous and refreshing and it doesn't last very long. It is something of a brief and impulsive moment in the sky, and the clouds begin to diffuse into the horizon and the sunlight continues to colour the landscape in a profusion of different hues and tones, sometimes so much so that the subtle undercurrent of moisture, of tiny yet involved molecules of water continue their motion within that landscape; it is a constant with many different variations. And perhaps there is something in that apparent separation which illustrates how we might see each other. We have but one expression of what we are yet it travels further in many rivulets of change and crosscurrents of meeting and separation. This language, it seems, denies us when used idly a wonderful permanent impermanence.