Shifting Patterns

Raindrops create intricate, shifting patterns on my window...delicate silver streaks that twist and meander, joining other silver lines for the briefest moment, before finding their own gleaming, downward path again. I watch, mesmerized, wondering if this is how lives intersect in the canvas that is life. And then, those memories return...

Maybe someday, when you look at the random patterns the rain paints on your window, you'll remember too...

The endless, agonized waiting, before a brave smile merged the course of two lives...the love that wove itself slowly through unending conversations and interlocked fingers during stolen hours...the fragile hope that grew stronger and more impatient with each passing day...that blind faith in forever.

Someday perhaps, you'll wonder too, about that exact moment when happiness had begun to fray...When the boundless possibilities dwindled to a handful of tokens, waiting to be discarded or destroyed in hurt and helpless fury...

The diamond raindrops continue to beat down on the glass...noisily, relentlessly, mercilessly. But the rain will end and the sun will stream its brilliant, golden rays through the same glass, washed clean of yesterday's dust and regret. Maybe then, we'll understand, that our dreams were meant to intertwine, but briefly, and acknowledge, that with its continuous, forward momentum, life goes on...

Except on some moist, grey days, like today, when the rain paints patterns of the past on the window.

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And a piece by Alexandre Desplat, The Meadow. 

Remember a Rainy Day

It’s been raining incessantly for the past week now. It’s been raining memories too; memories of another time, another place, and rain…always, the rain. 

I like the rain when it falls softly, gently…

It reminds me of my first kiss, from a boy I had secretly held in my heart, hoping, yet never expecting to be loved in return. But it rains magic sometimes, and some of that must have touched us and kept us together, if only for a while. I remember that kiss now, in that magical, misty rain, and the wonders of first love.

I like the rain when it beats down relentlessly…

It takes me back to the day my bike had refused to start – thanks to the rains – and I had had to push it all the way home, from college. What had made me ignore the near-pneumonia the weather had almost given me, was the company of the boy who had walked me home that day; who had pushed my bike for the better part of the journey and had made the hour seem to rush by in a few i-wish-they-never-ended minutes. I remember the wishful beginning of my last love.

I like the rain for the remembrances. And I like the rain for all those feelings they brings back. But lately, call it growing up or growing old…

I like the rain, mostly, when it stops. 

I give you Smokie, with 'Have you ever seen the rain'.

Glass Butterflies

It’s been long enough.

And now,

Simply

Enough.

I open my fist

To release captured moments...

Of a car ride in the pouring April rain

A walk alongside a lake at dawn

Of silence shared, understood,

And screaming joy at the park...

Street food on moist evenings,

Those fragile,

Glass butterflies in November...

The shadow across your face,

A point of no return,

And that lingering, last embrace.

They fly out

Like fireflies...

Twinkling erratically,

Before claimed

By the darkness.

I turn around

And walk beyond the place

Where our lives touched briefly,

Without regret,

With no more pain.

I think of you one last time.

Every time. 

Rain

The crack of thunder
And a shower of rain,
The smell of wet earth
And that feeling again...


The lifting of spirits,
A surge of pure joy
A face turned heavenward,
Liquid diamonds to enjoy.


Splashing in puddles
Defying the wind,
An upturned umbrella
With a stitch unpinned...


Memories of childhood
And the first blush of youth
A warm hand to hold
And a loving heart that soothes.

Grace

A contrite heart looks heavenward,
Seeking compassion,
Fearing judgement
Eyes closed, hands outstretched,
Whispering a silent prayer
For deliverance.


Dark clouds thicken, convene,
Obscuring faint starlight...
The winds blow strong
And loudly howl
As if to reprimand,
As if, to condemn.


An unseen hand
Writes verdict across violent skies
In streaks of silver
And raises a resounding disapproval,
With faint echoes of
An unexpected understanding.


Heaven spreads wide its arms
And lets fall mercy drops
Which pelt down hard and cool,
Cleansing, refreshing the soul
And washing away every regret, every grief.
Sometimes, calm comes after the storm.