Welcome Rain, Unwelcome Portents

The rain came finally last week, starting as a patter over the meeting-room tiles at work. Water began to pour from the tiles to the stone slabs by the window. When I went up to the first floor, the sound was a maddening drum-roll on the sheets high above the shop-floor. Outside, the grass turned instantly to bright green; it hadn't responded with such ardour when it was bathed daily by expensive sprinklers. Flowers and leaves went on to dance, and even the plants indoors inhaled the scent and perked up in the moist air. The little bird with the long thin beak which sucks nectar by my window went into a tizzy and hopped about the window bars. It went up some bars up and came down some bars, jerking its head all the time. The rains returned yesterday and the day before, and have slipped elsewhere now. But the wind has kept up its show. The mayflowers were merry when there was only torrid sun these past days. Now they've turned merrier. Their fallen, though, are squished into the slush, they're red ornamentation in brown goo.

Down to the earth the dark of the clouds has descended. Yesterday, I saw water gurgling down the steeper side streets, into homes there. A short spell of rain caused such a flood. Today in Gandhi Bazaar the car front of us sank into a hole in the street, and we got out to help lift it out. We were drenched, but when the car came off the rut, we laughed like longtime buddies.

These rains haven't been a welcome arrival for all. Some in power would be praying for water to change character this season, and not flood, not go into homes, and not give them more problems they can handle, and a migraine. They'd be asking for the rains to only ruffle the leaves on the trees, and cool the city, and go way out of town to the fields, and, as soon as possible, just leave. But what I've seen these last days is the ominous sight of twisting waters swirling down the streets going toward nowhere but disaster. I've seen mean whorls over manholes. More rain will come, and the waters will go round and reveal tasks not done.

It's going to be stormy this season.