I’ve always loved the sound of rain.
My most vivid memory is from the first years of our marriage, when we went camping in the woods near Lake Superior in our old canvas tent. The kind where you couldn’t touch the canvas “walls” or they’d “bleed” — meaning the rain would seep in. So you had to center yourselves — which somehow is really what the rain seemed to do.
We’d fall asleep quietly, just listening to the rain. Have you ever done that?
Rain Song
Plop
patter
ping
slow steady
nocturnal rain
tapping on the yellow-green ceiling
of my ancient canvas tent.
Comfort seeps in
as I burrow deep
in my cocoon zippered bag,
crisp cold nose
just outside the seam.
Lids shutter
slowly
to listen as thoughts float
in a cool haze.
A hooting owl sits sheltered
beneath spring’s green-yellow canopy
the drip
drop
patter
plops above his feathered head.
Dreaming now, I see
a moon sliver guide me
to a moment of clarity.
These rain notes
are nature’s evensong:
a prayer for all who sleep
in this forested place.
lillian the home poet 