“Rain opens us, like flowers, or earth that has been thirsty for more than a season.
We stop all of our talking, quit thinking, or blowing sax to drink the mystery.
We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing.
This is how the rain became rain, how we became human.”
-Joy Harjo, from “It’s Raining in Honolulu,” which I first saw quoted in Daniel Heath Justice’s Why Indigenous Literatures Matter
My friends, I was writing a different Uproar post—perhaps for next week–when the wind shifted in the window and then it was raining. Clouds’ fingers dancing on the deck. Then I was outside, too, surprised and opened by how thick the water fell. Then I was crouching beneath a little tree in my backyard, making sure the rain barrel was closed, water stitching down around us, earth into sky, now into before into after. Life into life.
Rain opens us, like flowers.
There’s been a drought here. The plants lying down, one kind after another, beneath the dry heat. Until I see wilted ground cover like ragged carpet over hard dirt. Now I’m back inside, skin still slicked, long enough to write down that I think the plant stems will lift back up with this. Like I feel myself lifting.
We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing.
Long enough, and no longer. And back outside to feel the water soaking down, lavish, luscious, alive.
This is how the rain became rain, how we became human.
Azlan Guttenberg Smith 