It starts softly. A single drop on the windowpane. Then another. Soon, the world is wrapped in a gray hush, and the old voices rise with the scent of wet earth.
"Let the rain kiss you," whispers Langston Hughes. And for a moment, you almost believe it — that water falling from a bruised sky could be a tenderness, not a trouble.
By dusk, the clouds crack open a little light. The dripping slows. And you recall something hopeful from Alice Hoffman: "Rain is grace. Rain is the sky descending to the earth. Without rain, there would be no life."
So you step outside. No coat. Just your face turned upward — catching the last of it, letting the old quotes wash through you like a second language.
So you stand at the glass, watching rivulets race like small, desperate lives. And you think of the poet Rumi, calm as a dry room: "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." Even the rain? Especially the rain.
But then the storm gathers. The gutters choke. And you remember Tom Waits growling through the downpour: "The rain falls hard on the humdrum town. It falls on everyone." No favorites. No umbrella for the heart.