Evening, birdsong and tiny raindrops

"It's going to rain soon," we agreed as we looked at the darkening cloud ceiling. I decided to go back out to sit on the porch anyway.

It was a gorgeous time and place to read. The evening was full of birdsong and as the light waned, I saw I had only a few pages left. I would finish my book before it got too dark.

The rain started out very slowly, with the most miniscule drops. Half-felt and half-heard, they touched my shirt and my hair with the utmost gentleness.

My book was spread out safe and dry on the glass table. I was seated only halfway under the umbrella, but I didn't move beneath its shelter. The rain was so slow and fine that there seemed to be no appreciable danger of getting wet.

I felt the richness and silence of certain summer evenings, the same feeling I sometimes get when I pick blackberries at dusk in the Serpentine Fen.

There, as summer darkness slowly closes in, I hear only the secret rustlings of small animals, and the whooshing of wings as birds come in to land on the ponds.

Sometimes profound quiet seems to deepen with the beginning sounds of rain.

The sunshine returned this morning, with a different accompaniment of birdsong, a few clouds and a gentle breeze.