Deities of Rain

(17 July - 8 August 1990) after Dante Gabriel Rossetti

We heard raindrops on the roof and ran to the windows; we stood at the doorways and watched the summer dryness washing from the leaves, creeping under the parked cars. It wasn’t easy to believe the totally unexpected; we had to smell it, run out into it, open our mouths. Rain? Not in California in July in the middle of a drought. But when she shook her billowy skirts inviting all to dance, her airy sisters came to join her until the sky was full, each sister shaking her skirt so the rain poured down. It was easier to imagine deities, believe in the intangible, than the great wetness we were seeing, the deities of rain cracking happily across the wash followed by waves of roaring. We’re not in control. Like the psyche, never mindful, she’s a part of us, so we want to understand, but stand in awe for the earth and the air we want to breathe.