Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

Don’t Mean to get You All Misty

If you can’t take the rain back to your roots, take a description and share it. Sharing is one way to expand the circles that your voice will reach. If you expand that voice far enough, you can begin to discuss peace with someone half a world away. Neat, huh!

I encountered rain the other day; here’s what it was like:

     I had to journey out of Texas for morning music: rain. I couldn't bring it home, but I could bring a description.

  TALLEQUAH, Okla. — Morn­ing comes upon the land with gentle rain. The recurring rumble in the distance is a reminder of a storm that came in the night. Or is it the start of a fresh, new rain?

     By the vegetable garden, lin­gering drops cling like living globes and shine like diamonds on the edge junctures of the wire fence. A clap of thunder sounds the overture of more droplets -possibly a downpour. Right at this special moment, the last move­ment of the rain is slowing to an end.

     Horses and chickens graze be­yond the garden. A deer appears and then is gone. Roosters chal­lenge inquiring ears: "Daybreak is upon the land." Yet it sounds like "Ah-ha" or "Ah-oh."

     The bragging call is from a great distance although the roosters are 60 paces away. Maybe the trumpeting of morning is from another place or time as a reply to the local greeters of the light.

     A bay horse leisurely swishes its tail to the music while another with bent head munches grass. They are white silhouettes against the darkening green wood.

      The uneven^-raindrops create a rhythm section for the chirping of birds and staccato rooster calls. A steady line of water from a roof spout etches the cool, morning air. Under the sheltering leaves where voyeurs wait and meditate, a few drops bounce from leaf to leaf and finally dot their notes about this page. The wind chimes remind the world of steeple bells.

     The drums of thunder come from all sides now. Above the light brightens and the rumbles bounce off the dome of the sky. Trees sway gently with the morning music. Another rooster from a far place answers an unasked question.

     The sound comes from behind the garden, the fields where horses graze, the line of a dark symphony in the woods and the coming rain. The thin ribbon of water from the roof becomes a Chinese brush stroke. A pedes­trian crossing of roosters, chick­ens and a goat interrupt the sleepy, awakening pasture, making it suddenly a background for the sounds.

     Still, and yet not still, the wind chimes tell that the tempo of the morning is quickening. The whirl of the industrial air-conditioner jumps into a whirl of sound, in­terrupting the individual instru­ments. Just as abruptly as it started, it stops. The gentle sounds of morning rain sing to each other again: A thunder clap to the right. Water dripping to the left. The meadow in dark garments stretches its un-imaged softness in front. More thunder behind.

     Droplets of rain are now ev­erywhere. The birds punctuate their cat's-paw sound, singing to each other and the morning, with the slight dance movement of leaves all around.

      The timpani of single raindrops on an overturned oil drum counts the iambic passing of precious liquid seconds. A crescendo rumbles in the distance. More chirps. And still, with the soothing sounds of summer and gentle rain, morning comes.