rainy season, year two.

So now my life is split into two equal parts:

When it’s raining and when it’s not.

When it’s raining,

There is sound above all:

through ten thousand coconut tree branches,

falling onto and -most emphatically- through the leaf-roof over my head,

forming puddles and mud pools and temporary culverts

where they should & should not be,

splattering each ripening mango as they grow fat and impossibly succulent.

When it’s raining,

I do not worry about fetching water

for bathing, for drinking, for washing dishes and pots.

Let it fall, I have nowhere to be.

When it’s not raining,

there are other forces to contend with,

and they often meld into one entity:

heat & boredom. They are the same thing.

There is a certain sound that boredom has here.

Even the birds cannot raise their voices against it.

It is the sound of the absence of sound in a place where

there is always something to hear-

a mournful wailing of a cow,

the ever-boisterous crowing of a rooster,

a crying child,

the pounding of rice against wooden mortar & pestle,

the buzzing of insects that never rest.

When it’s not raining,

and the heatboredom presses down

even those sounds come to rest in the shade.

rainy season brings flowers

click here for last year's blog about the turning of seasons