Have you felt the rain? The way the clouds roll in on distant hills, on darkened horizons. The cold wind, a living thing great gusts that give flight to leaves like flocks of sparrows. Have you felt the pitter patter, at first, more sound, like 'drop, drop, drop!' till shower comes, fat drops, as if the whole dark sky had opened up? But have you felt the rain? And have you felt the fire, wild, the warmth, as it danced, and the smoke as it pushed away the night, alive with the wind flickering, and then embers, that held back the chill--bandaged hands rubbed together, smiles shared as you tried to stay warm. But have you felt the rain? And do you know the first drop, the name of it, in the unwritten book, the first drop you ever felt? When as a child, you had turned your face first to the cloudy darkening sky, eyes closed, and flinched, when it fell, like a tear upon your eyelid, cold, and wondered at this thing that soaked you like the simple earth beneath your feet, like the mud, down to your soul. Oh how I WISH you could have felt the rain as I had felt it the first time! If only! If only! For want of words that became sensation to imprint the spreading water like tendrils in the dry and dampening petals of some wild flower, in a field without name, among the thunder that no ear has heard, among the lightening no eye has ever known.