voices of the rain

- or rather, one voice made up of many many parts. A sort of Spem In Alium of wetness. That's what the water says this morning.

After hot dry days, with heavy evenings - wonderful weather in itself - we woke to rain.

Writers, poets, have sought to dissect and label that variety of sounds. With my head out of the window, I begin to do the same, then I let go of cataloguing. I'd rather just be with it. Breathe in that indescribable collection of smells that come from plants and earth wet again after dry days - you'll know it, of course. Listen to the total ear-picture of rain on so many different surfaces, running off in so many different channels and routes.

The great dynamo of the seasons is thrumming almost audibly. The plants - trees, nettles, corn cockles, broad beans, speedwell, fescues - are almost visibly leaping upwards.

The blackbirds are completely off their heads, of course, singing fit to burst.

"The river is within us, the sea is all about us." What's falling on my head will soon be river and sea. But for now, it's our garden, on a suddenly wet and noisy morning, and it's - delicious.