The Storm

The Storm

While on holiday in Mexico, I watched this storm come and go. It was a fantastic sight I had never seen before. I tried to capture it's essence for you. I tried to imagine the sounds of it to for the storms I knew from England were very different.

As the white fluffy clouds rolled up in the distance, the blue skies turned gray.A chill filled the air. Father sun was hidden from view by a huge black cloud, which had gathered along with the others. They soon turned black. The clouds chased each other rapidly across the heavens, until eventually day slid into night. The animals instinctivley scurried away to find shelter from the surprising wrath of MoMe. An eerie silence filled the jungle now in place of the incessant noise of the animals goingabout their every day funtions. I sat and watched.

Pit...pat...pit...pat was the sound of the softly falling rain as it bounced off the dry earth. Then, in places, a strange phenomenon occurred. it's as though the rain never touches the ground; evaporating before it can reach out to the scorched earth, earth now desperate to have her thirst quenched hangs out her tongue to catch this precious cool liquid.

Soon, Mother Nature changes the rhythm of the rain pitter...pat...pitter...pat, gradually becoming faster and faster; pitter..patter...pitter...patter down fell the heavier rain. Ssssssss was the sound it made as it hit the scorched earth. Ssssssss just like a snake as it slithers along it way.

And the earth? Well she just laid back, opening up every nook and cranny, allowing the rain to penetrate deep within her. Greedily she took her fill of this precious fluid.It refreshed and quenched her despirate thirst, which would in turn, will allow earth to give birth to crops, which would sustain a nation, and flowers that would one day adorn a young girls hair.

Many flashes indiscriminately filled the sky like the bulbs flashing on the cameras of the worlds press at a movie premier.

"Lightening loves to make this grand entrance!" I thought.

The thunder rumbles away gently in the distance. Suddenly, without warning, lightening forked out. Hissing and sizzling its way to earth, it danced across the bubbling ocean trying to avoid the wave crests as though they could extinuish it's hot fingers. Soon the thunder roared with such ferocity it made the earth seem tremble and shake to her very core.

Strange smells filled the air. A pristine cleanliness was sensed by all. The thunder roared and crashed about high in the heavens. It bellowed with a tremendous effort and caused the trees to dance strangely.

Lightening, alive and not wanting to be out shone by thunder, struck it's way around the jungle. It bounced off trees and anything else that happened to be in its way. It whistled and whined on its destructive journey. This terrified the creatures that lived there still hidden with their eyes wide open, searching their peripheral vision for danger as they nervously waited for the storm to pass by.

Eventually bored with their game, thunder and lightening moved off into the distance, rattling on like two old men arguing over the results of a ball game. They eventually disappeared into the near by mountains.

A great peace filled the air, the rain stopped, apart from the occasional drip from the leaves above. The dark clouds have melted away as though they never existed. Father sun returns and stretched out his rays of sunshine and turned up the volume on his heat control, to bring back warmth and light to the earth once again. Everything was bright,clean and sparkling once more, with the reassuring aroma of Mother Nature just having had a shower filled my lungs.

The birds stretched out and shook their wings, of the excess water. Their magnificent plumage took on a new brilliance. They sounded the all-clear to the other jungle animals who slowly and cautiously reappeared from the safety of their hideaways. Before much longer the jungle is filled once with the incessant chatter of the spider monkey, the squawk of the guacamaya bird, I heard the gentle plip plop of the fish as they returned to the surface of the deep waters, to catch the insects as they hovered and skimmed across the river surface once more.

Eventually, the people ventured out too. Life continued as before. The raindrops now glisten like diamonds on the the leaves of the tree branches, before they eventually evaporated in the heat of the sun. The animals drank freely from the puddles, the only evidence left of the storm.

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