I heard the rain before I saw the droplets on the deck. Bob Dylan’s Buckets of Rain played on my computer, the chorus accompanied by a million tiny water splats on the slate roof overhang. Somewhere in the front yard, the rooster crowed several raspy calls. Perhaps, he too celebrated the moistening of the parched soil by adding to the refrain.
I turned the music off to see what else I might hear. The ceiling fan pull string swung in rhythm overhead to the drumming of droplets, in a slight crescendo, as little puddles gathered. The house hummed along with a syncopated beat of the laundry dryer rotating upstairs. The score was subtle and in a gentle, quiet place.
I could not stop listening to the grinding sounds of stone under the tires of a truck in low gear heading up the unpaved road of the mountain. In the back of the symphony, the percussion take their places, an orchestra all their own. It’s easy to forget they are back there, all those little strikes of one thing against another, like falling raindrops on tin or onto stone. While everyone watches the soloist, the rest of orchestra counts their measures and plays their part.
When I finally cannot find another thing to hear, my own voice interrupts, claps too soon between sections. Words form, and I am asking myself a rhetorical question, “should I write this in past or present tense?” I am considering the possibilities, when bird twitter sopranos cut the thought with a blessing. They too have been parched by the drought. It’s a happy song, this rain music, which I suddenly realize I can only half hear over the typing of the keys on my computer. Perhaps, I can view my own interruption of this rainy day to be just as important a part of this water song as any other.
The rain steadily fell. No wind to drive it into the siding, which would have created a different sound altogether. Thunderstorms predicted, I knew I would be listening now to hear more, looking forward to the climax where the kettle drums of thunder roil loudly and the cymbals of clashing lightning arouse a grand finale.
Marcia Roth Tucci lives in Charlemont and writes essays, poetry and short stories. She works at UMass in the Humanities and Fine Arts where she advises and teaches creative expression.