Rain is truly the most cathartic element for me. The scent is soul-balm, the droplets on my skin the purest baptism, the sound more honest than any word I've ever heard. I know no better type of rejuvenation that to set out walking, feel the rhythm of the earth reverberating through my legs, to breath in time with the trees, to leave my heaviness with the ferns, to reawaken my curiosity by laughing with the sparrows.

*****

I wonder

Has there been some small cosmic shift, and the tide is finally receding? This is nothing the naked eye can observe just yet, but requires a thorough observation preformed in utter solitude broken only by my own inhalations.

*****

I watch the drops end their heavenly descent and spread into concentric rings on the earth's crust.

I wonder

Is this the birth-stage in the ever reincarnate life of hydrogen-dioxide? If I stand in it, turn my face up, let that perfect new-formed life roll down my skin, will I absorb that rebirth, that fresh beginning, osmosically?

*****

I hold my arm out, until the muscles along my shoulder twitch and shake. The edges of my sleeve, pushed high, darkens with saturation as I break the first rule of wilderness survival and give into the rain. I watch the droplets gather into generous pools between the hard tendons of my knuckles. I watch the water rush deep rivers along the story-telling lines of my palm. I watch my dry, tired skin drink deep; small wrinkles filling up, taunt lines plumping, a glow spreading from fingertip to fingertip, spilling into the broad heel of my hand, bottlenecking into my wrist, flowing up my arm ever heart-ward.