Is It Raining Where You Are?

I am alone. I am in a wasteland, or what appears to be one. It has no ending, I can only see th vast desert landscape before me.

Have you ever been caught in a sand storm? It's the most amazing thing to witness. The miniscule claws of a million tiny dragons claw the flesh from your face, dissect the top layers of your eyes, and blow their little puffs of fire up your nose and down to your lungs, until you are completely consumed by their ferocity. Then, as you finally squint your eyes enough to keep their claws out of your sensitive corneas, you see their visions, their mirages, floating directly in front of you.

Is it raining where you are?
Do you see the angels of water
Falling through the air
To dance softly at your feet?

Is it raining where you are?
Is a life-giving purity
Settling to earth
That the parched rivers may drink?

Is it raining where you are?
Is the moon setting the tide
To bring the rain clouds
To set down their gracious rain?

To rain?

The dragons of the sandstorm subside, fleeing back to their secret lairs among the sand. I continue my walk of solitude in this wasteland, finding only more emptiness.

What is it to rain? To have the very sky falling upon you, to look up and feel the water splash on your face, to see the crops in the field grow to such heights that it makes you wonder what god allows you to see the glory of life that is wrought by even the smallest form of heaven?

Is it raining where you are?
Is the sky dark?
Are the clouds circling overhead?
Do you look up into an endless waterfall
As a wonder of life descends?

Is the sky ever truly dark during a rainstorm? Am I even able to comprehend what darkness is, even total darkness, to be totally without light, completely unable to see?

What is light? Is it some form of wave, a particle, perhaps? Or is it understanding? Do we truly see clearly when we don't understand what we are looking at? Or can the blind man actually see better than us all, because he comprehends what this total darkness is?

Who are the blind? Am I, though I have perfect vision, totally oblivious to the obvious?

I see the wasteland. But is it truly a wasteland?

Now I see many forms taking shape around me. Can I not see the desert for the sand? Can I truly look at myself and see that I am a desert? A desert that needs rain? Am I a desert, when I should be a garden? Does too much sunlight kill the plantlings in my heart?

My footsteps slow. Am I looking at my soul?

Is it raining where you are?