Here's the rain

After a few weeks in the high country, in the warm country, in the sunland where the air was fresh and life felt like being alive - it's back to low country, to the cold country, to the deadland where life is lived in sketches and outlines and shadows of forms without ever being realised.

I stand or I sit or I walk around this room, and I wonder what will come.

For today, it is the rain. The drenching downpour that pounds against you, the hail that hurdles from the sky and stings your face, your arms, your eyes. The sirens that catch you off-guard, the wind that whips around your shape, the hurricane you never heard was on its way.

But, after today, I believe we will still be standing. Although huddled together, although frozen and wet, although worried and unassured by the color of the sky. Although our treasures seem further now than they had ever been. Although the world seems darker now than it ever had. Although the night seems harsher now than we ever thought.

I believe we will still be standing here, together. Caught in the same storm, tossed by the same sea, held in the same sway. Watched by the same wind.
And for now, that must be hope enough.