Rain at Night

A soft rumble woke me some time during the night. No, it wasn’t the roar of tens of thousands of motorcycles in Fayetteville’s Bikes, Blues, and BBQ shindig although I went to sleep with that sound in my ears. Neither was it the soft snore of a sleeping giant somewhere overhead. It was thunder! And this morning, rain drips gently off the eaves and splashes on the deck. I am grateful for it. Watering my plants keeps them alive but it takes rain to really make them vibrant again.

Out in Colorado, a lot of rain falling in a short amount of time is causing  a lot of misery. In other parts, people suffer from too little rain. I remember my mother saying that in long ago Etta Bend, there were some years that my grandpa would have a wonderful corn crop ready for harvest when an over-abundance of rain would cause the Illinois River to flood. All their hours of back-breaking labor in the sun, to say nothing of the money the corn would have brought, would be washed away in a single day.

A gentle rain at night is better than a lullaby. Somewhere in my dim and distant childhood, there is the quiet sound of raindrops hitting the bottom of an over-turned metal bucket. A little girl is tucked into her bed, secure in the love and safety of her family. All this is associated in my mind with rain at night.

What of the creatures in my yard? What do they do when rain falls on their domain? Maybe that squirrel I wrote about yesterday, along with his brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins, flip their wonderful tails over their heads as umbrellas.  And the birds? Do they scoot under some particularly leafy limb? I haven’t looked this morning (it’s still quite dark) but the gray and white cat who seems to have adopted me, may be snuggled on the porch. I’ve often wondered where fragile butterflies and hummingbirds go to escape the weight of raindrops.

A Sudden Shower

There’s a scurry in the garden,

There’s a rustle through the plants,

There’s a scamper, scoot and scuttle

Made by bustling bugs and ants.

The mushroom’s an umbrella

For a cabbage butterfly

And the pumpkin vine’s a shelter

For a cricket hopping by.

Then a rush of racing raindrops

Patter, splatter in the grasses,

While the tiny garden dwellers

Rest until the shower passes.

           –Blanche Day Manos