JOY ALONG THE WAY: HERE COMES, THERE GOES THE RAINSTORM

"Oh, good, a rain is coming," I mumble to myself, fumbling around with early morning kitchen things.

Listening for the rain to come may, for some, fall into the category of watching paint dry or grass growing. I find it delightful, especially if it approaches slowly.

First, there was the low rumble of thunder, out about Gordonville, I judged. Gentle. Non-threatening. The skies along the western horizon, a moment ago flushed with morning glow, turned to gray velvet.

I think the birds hear the thunder. Those out feeding but who had nestlings with nothing but leaf or cedary canopies for roofs, flew home.

From my vantage point I saw a mother cardinal disappear into a mock orange bush, another into a thicket of May roses.

The chattering martins, for those who think they can interpret, were saying, "How stupid are those red birds and doves and house finch. Why don't they find a ready-made roof like us?"

The thunder moves in a great circle a little northward and grows more persistent as if to say, "I mean business this time."

I fancy I can smell rain mixed with the fragrance of clover, purple petunias, the May roses. It must be getting nearer, I think. Maybe out west of the Drury buildings. Now it is across I-55 and spattering on Mt. Auburn, coming on down hill to the creek.

I make a quick mental check of things I don't want to get wet and go to gather them in. There is a length of pink and lavender rose-printed cloth I've thrown over a front porch chair to complement the pots of like colored petunias there. I get it in. here is the little hand-painted ornamental bird house on the back porch railing, the cushion in the southwest corner of the swing, always just out of protection from the porch roof.

Is the coffee still hot? Yes. I get a cup and a muffin and resume my vantage point seat, noting that it is much darker outside than when I went inside. Look, the street lights have come on! How about that! Haven't even seen that in a solar eclipse.

By this time I can hear the rain. Coming fast. It is over on Hawthorne, now West Rodney. The martins either go into their apartments or huddle under their two story tin roofs. The bird feeders are quickly vacated except for the double one with hallway in between. There sits a squirrel as usual.

I'll let him stay this time. A rain soaked squirrel is a droopy sight and he is smart to have thought of this shelter, although I'm sure he was there long before the thunder rumbled.

Lightning lights up the whole countryside. Perhaps I should go inside, but I want to be at one with nature, or at least a part of it.

A big splatch of rain hits the nearby metal awning, sending out splatcheets that divide and re-divide. Then, as if to show who is boss in this wet show, down comes a wad of hail that bumps off the awning right into one of my planters full of blooming petunias, showing no manners at all.

I really ought to go in, but this is a good show. The sundrops, primroses, phlox all bow down to such power. It is not at all like watching paint dry or grass growing. It is a force of nature showing how vulnerable we are.

The storm gathers forces, blows and snorts. I try to see through the opaque gray veil to determine if any tree limbs are coming down, the College, the river, Illinois, off into infinity.

The next to notice this is the wren. She emerges from her little red house and makes the air vibrate with her song that must say, "Wow, wasn't that something, something, 'thing, 'thing."

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.