that smell carried across the sands; sharp, earthy rain. as lightening danced across the mountain high clouds, i remembered.
i remembered the hot blistering days, the sun scorching everything it touched. the heat, rising in waves, shimmering the hills in the distance, and that smell, so sharp I could taste it on my tongue, compeled me to remember hot, blue, barren skies waiting in their own heat for relief.
then, as day wore to dusk, the first traces of thunderheads seeded the southern sky, those small, tentative white wisps building into giants of water trapped, towering high into the sky, waiting to fall, sentinels across the southern skies marching slowly north, pushing before them that sharp, earthy smell, the smell that carried the promise of relief, finally, from the relentless storm of heat.
when that earthy smell of rain floods my nostrils, memories flood my mind, memories of waiting for transformation of smell to rain, rain that cooled the land, washed away the heat, quelled the dust. there was always hope in that earthy smell, hope that summer would finally break, hope that rain would return to replenish, hope that the seemingly endless days of heat would vanish with the first cold front.
life is in water and water in life and the ancient cycle mounts its destiny, revealing itself as the masses of clouds build into towers of the gods, gods who carry with them the hope of water, the promise of rain, the gift of life.