The Magical Chance by Dallas Lore Sharp — Read

I lay listening to the rain spattering against the fly of the tent and dripping through the roof of birch leaves upon the sputtering fire and soaking down into the deep, spongy bottom of the forest -- softly, as soft as something breathing and asleep. The guide and the boy beside me were asleep, but I had been awakened by the rain. The rain always wakens me. And in my grave, I think, if I lie sleeping under a roof of forest leaves, I shall wake and listen when it rains. Before the stars sang together the primordial waters made music to the rising land; before the winds came murmuring through the trees the waves were fingering the sweet-tuned sands strung down the sounding shores; and before the birds found their tongues, or the crickets their little fiddles, or even the toad had blown his quavering conch, it had rained! And when it rained -- and not until it rained -- the whole earth woke into song.

Mother of music is the water, and, for me, the sweetest of her daughters is the rain, and never sweeter, not even on the shingles, nor down the rolled, fevered blades of the standing corn, than in the deep woods at night upon the low slant roof of your tent.