TEARS OF THE SKY

- by AngelMercury, written on March 7, 1999

I have always been told that rain is the tears of the sky.

Sometimes I believe it, when raindrops of a gloomy day hammer my window in frustration, as if trying in vain to get in, to tell me of their sadness. But the window remains closed, and the raindrops slide slowly down the impenetrable glass and drop to the ground below. The world’s troubles are not mine to solve.

However, I am told that, as a child, I loved to just lie awake at night and listen to "the voice of the rain".

I still do, when the house is quiet and everyone goes about their business silently, as if subdued by the evenness of the sullen clouds above. When the sky is colored a neutral, endless, faultless, almost tangible grey, and it’s impossible to tell where the healing sun is, it has the quiet ability to shut the soul in. Smiles are less frequent on days like this, and they are even less if it is raining as well. These are the times when souls gather around the home fire, to warm themselves and tell stories until the invisible sun escapes the sky and gives way to starless darkness.

I instead retreat into my room, turn off the light, close my eyes and let the rain tell stories to me. I discovered as a child that rain has a voice – it whispers and murmurs mysteriously, and if you let it, it can tell you more than a real voice ever could. Sometimes my cat too comes to hear these, or maybe different, stories... But you do not need to answer back to what the rain tells – it gives its thoughts to you and expects nothing in return, only your willingness to hear them.

I heard somewhere that one can only achieve clarity of mind when looking at either fire or water, because they have always existed and have been here at the dawn of the universe. But looking at fire hurts one’s eyes in the end with its joyful brightness, while water caresses them gently, creating subtle worlds in its depths for one to ponder. A small fire is a small joy, it crackles, bounces and leaps like a warm, living being, a curious elf perhaps. Its thoughts are open and easy to understand, and it is willing to share them. Water, however, is a nymph of mystery, gently, slowly letting the mind unravel the secrets in its depths while it murmurs softly in a language only the soul knows and the mind can only guess at.

Rain can be the tears of the sky, but only if you want it to be. If you want to hear of sadness, the rain will tell it to you. If you want to hear of joy, you will hear it from the rain. The rain can cry or laugh, depending on what you wish it to do. It is a friend that has a bottomless well of stories to tell, and it is glad to pour its feelings out to you if you want to hear them.

These beautiful aquamarine graphics are from: