Tonight.

I heard the rain pouring out it's heavy heart onto the streets and alleyways tonight.

I stepped out onto my porch, watching the drops of water speed downward so fast, yet so quietly.

I looked out into the somewhat quiet city night, into my little corner of the alleyway, looking at the streams of water and it's criss-crossing across the imperfectly flat pavement, down to the sewers. I stared at the glow of the lamps, how they radiate slightly behind curtains of falling drops of water.

Heavy rain is so beautiful. At night, it steals my heart more than anything. The cool air, the glossing of everything it touches, the feeling on your skin, it's taste, and the way it brings out the smells, and the sound... oh, the sound. It's the most beautiful music I've ever heard. It is so loud and seemingly so quiet at the same time. Each drop is a minute sound, and the drops are innumerable. It's like a thousand whispers at once. I could listen to it's song forever.

But like all songs, it's only momentary, and it's gone.

The rain let up, and the magic left me.

The night was still cool, the air still beautiful, the sound still present... but fainter. Like the ending of a dream, when consciousness begins to seep in... it's the end of a moment. And it is fleeting. As with everything else in this universe, it gives way to the only constant, that of change.

I retreated inside to write these words down, to share with everyone who reads this what I've experienced, but also to remember that moment. To live and experience that is to release my mind into freedom. All pain and sorrow melts away and clears.

Though the moment is gone, I have the memory, so that I may crawl back inside of it.

When my mind has raged too hard, when my thoughts have derailed too deep into agony, I will have a place of peace, of serenity, of joy.

It is my retreat. My sanctuary.

Have you ever seen the rain?