Drumming, distant, arrythmic, awakened me. Listening, I leaned into the silence between beats. Thor’s sword began to slice away the velvet dark to open a gate for the Sun’s entrance.

And what an entrance. Perhaps entranced, described me as I watched magic colours, that only nature knows how to manage, light up the east and turn the rain into a molten red river.

Then soften. For a while it seemed that the Sun would prevail and chase the clouds North.

The storm stirred the winds. Black swirled.

And the Sun left, writing his promise to return in calligraphy.

Most of the day was dark, quiet without the hum of electricity that underlies our modern life.

How pleasant, listening to the rain on the roof, her hard pings against the stovepipe carry me back to my cradle-home where rain is a frequent lullaby. Rain is a voice we hear infrequently here. She is always a welcome guest.