The Coming of The Rains

I have a birdbath up on the terrace's ledge and opposite the door into my "writer's shack".

For most of  the summer past, it stayed bone dry as most of the time there was no water to fill into it. I also had the grief of seeing half a dozen eggplant / brinjal / aubergine (never knew the difference among them) plants drying almost half to death once in two days if I forgot to water them (incidentally with mixes of what my mother would have "thrown" into the kitchen sink and the "soakings" of half a bucket of water in which I had washed my olive green "birding" Tee shirt and the "waste fish water" from the goldfish bowl).

The writer's shack itself did not see much of me or my writing -- for one, it was unbearably hot for most of the summer and for another I was "into" birding in a big way (more about that here soon -- hopefully).

Then again this year we did not have much of the usual pre-monsoon showers; nor did we have the steady build-up (in the form of real rains) which promised the onset of the actual monsoons. Two "natural" ways in which summer's heat is vented.

So, yes it was one crazy, cruel summer indeed; with a lot of gazing up at the skies.

But then came the rains -- after two days of them streaming in, cumulus and like the frosting of a cherub's breath the clouds totally darkened the blues. And then came the rain, starting with an afternoon drizzle -- through which (from the terrace) I spotted two male Asian Koels arguing in a neighbouring tree -- that then turned into one continuous deluge, throughout the night.

That deluge gave me all the water I needed.

To bathe to the depths of my soul.

To wash the floor of the writer's shack with buckets collected from the storm-water pipe.

And -- in a birdbath that also got filled by the rain water, also for washing up all my assorted ink pens.

Balmy
snowmelt cool,
seeps deep
the rain
into
my parched soul.   

That was one unforgettable night too -- one of an extended power cut when I had a number of Pessoan insights, while "writing" into my phone.

Now, for rains of writing, as the pens await bursts and deluges of ink.