Summer Rain

We had rain today, a gentle-falling rain, the kind where you can use an umbrella without fear of it being turned inside out.
If you listened carefully you could hear the trees and flowers, heaving a big sigh of relief, their roots and foliage drinking in every last drop of moisture.
The temperatures fell, and for the first time in several weeks we enjoyed a tolerable 81degrees.
Oh, how I love days such as this.

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow