It's raining, it's pouring

The other day I was reading and the main character is going though this big ordeal and her life is falling apart. She should, by all accounts, be freaking out but all she can think it: It is raining. I think she was in shock, because that was a silly thing to notice at the time. That might be why the sentence has stuck in my head and gotten me thinking.

                                                                          It is raining.

Such a simple sentence that can mean so much. Is it a gentle patter; a friend knocking softly to get your attention? Is it so calm it is barely a mist, one that comes and soaks the world in a baptism meant to clean it? Is it a sudden burst over the desert, over compensation for months of neglect? Is it the angry kind that pounds the ground with its fists, a temper tantrum from the sky?

Is it falling on the shingles of the roof of the newly wed couple, so in love they can't see straight? Is it pitter-pattering a top the sheet of corrugated tin the man who lost everything is sitting under? Is it evaporating on hot asphalt or freezing on the cold of steel? Is it falling into a lake to be lost in a crowd or carefully being collected and stored away?

Is it because the sky is crying or did an angle over fill her bath? Is it why that old man is snoring or does he always do that? Will it really go away, really come again another day? Does it feel bad for always being late for the rain dances? Has it ever been a cat or a dog? Does it know that it brings May flowers?

Is it being watched by eyes who wish it would change to suit them; or is it falling, perfect in its solidarity? Does it look back at us? Does it see into our windows with as much fascination as we have for it? Does it know about the going away presents it leaves us? Has it seen the beauty of flowers and rainbows?

Does it know it is blocking out the sun and canceling picnics? Does it do it for a reason? Was it saving us from skin cancer? Did it want to come on our picnic? Did it just not want us to go? Does it have dreams? Does it have goals? Does it want to be a lake or end up in a tap? Why is it raining today and not three days ago?

Do these questions matter? Does the rain feel? Is it conscious? Does it know where it falls? Who it hits? What it cleans? When it lands? Who sees?

Or. . .
Is it just raining?