Clouds

Joni Mitchell sings a song called 'Clouds' that I like to listen to. We've had a lot of clouds recently. Yesterday it poured rain for a while. It usually sprinkles, drizzles, or patters. But yesterday, Seattle heard a roll of thunder, saw the sky light up, and felt buckets of rain pour down for a little while. It wasn't a Southern storm. It wasn't the tail of a hurricane thrashing two hundred miles inland. But the rain called attention to itself in a town where it usually goes unnoticed in its ubiquity. At one point I sat in a window and watched and listened and went silent. The sky lay draped in a veil of white-grey, foglike clouds, a lighted backdrop for the soft grey whisps of floating ghosts. Who can speak when nature performs parables? We must listen to hear God's voice.