Monday, December 12San Diego is a desert, a beautiful desert, but a desert non-the-less. We need more rain than we get. When there is a chance that rain is coming, our television meteorologists become visibly excited, usually promising more than clouds can deliver. For days ahead of the predicted arrival date, they stand in front of their maps with the white swirls and show how it will begin and how much we can expect. Conditions often change and a Pacific storm will sometimes come only as far south as Santa Barbara or Los Angeles. But today was different. Wind is blowing as I write this, and rain pelts my window. It is truly wonderful. I am reminded of the Conrad Aiken poem, "Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain."

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,—
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,—on a hawthorn leaf,—
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.