Raindrops

Rain is different in the desert.

For starters, there’s a lot less of it. 

One can go weeks without so much as a splatter of rain.

The plants shrivel and wilt, retreating into the earth. 

The parched dirt rises to float around our ankles and waists, a perpetual haze that clings to the skin, the clothes, the hair.

Everything is dust.

Then, the sky darkens.

The grumbling, pot-bellied clouds creep over the horizon and lurk, teasing the arid earth below until it aches for a sip.

When the clouds finally split, the whole desert trembles with the thud of that first raindrop.

Every torrent starts with a single drop of rain.

And that single drop carves a river that carries us all forward.