Pitter patter

I sit here in a family room on a cozy summer evening listening to the rain and I marvel at the magic of its sounds. The hollow tick tick on our chimney top; the pitter patter on the open window; the strangely comforting white noise of steady rain on the trees. Not to mention the wonderfully full dripdrop sound on the patio stones. Our room is quiet as my family members are lost in various books, all but for this wonderful patter of rain. And then along with the various sounds is the equally comforting knowledge of being warm and dry, and not needing to head out into the wetness any more today.

One of my favourite rain noises is on the canvas of a tent. That's the best.

Clouds

Is there such a thing as a poetic meteorologist?  If so, I'd like to meet her or him.  I'd love to make the acquaintance of someone who has a treasure trove of knowledge about the forecasting properties of clouds but can still revere their beauty.  Because clouds are amazing.  Their variety of shapes, forms, colours, location and all the rest is just enormous.  And beautiful!  What kid hasn't lain on her back on a hill turning small cumulus into pictures?  Who has not been awed by the interweaving of a cirrus into a magnificent summer sunset?  Or had serious concern for pitch-black mountains of clouds moving rapidly toward them?

Clouds are something you can go outside and just stare at almost anytime.  They are in the background for us most of the time, and therefore we ignore them, and yet they are an ever-changing book of images, a natural symbol of the truth that the only constant is change.  Beauty in the invisible.