Rain Forest Rain

A pair of toucans flew overhead.

The pulsating blueness from the sky reflected in the river. Nearer the banks the reflection of the equatorial rainforest shimmered with the consequence that it seemed like a mirage. Now and then pink dolphins had broken the surface, playing catch me who can with one another, avoiding the mats of vegetation that drifted from unknown places past the ramshackle poussada.

Looking down from the balcony of the dormitory it was impossible to miss the broad areas of cattle pasture that broke the tracts of jungle, but the jungle was there nonetheless and it was magical, magnificent and full of lives to be explored.

The storm didn’t arrive suddenly. It crept noisily and flashing from somewhere the other side of the river. Its forked lightning followed the darkening skies that heralded the change in the weather, but, above all things, the clearest sign of what was to come was the silence. The silence between the rumbling thunder rolls was a profound change from the tinnitus of jungle noises that unnoticeably filled the background of one’s perception during the sunny spells. Obvious noise when it stopped, and when it stopped it was indecipherable. Who could say how the noise was constructed? Perhaps you would guess – the sound of the river, insects in the jungle and across cattle speckled fields, trees tenderly touching at canopy level and creaking like old people if their branches pressed against one another more strongly. Certainly these noises can be heard, but you’re just picking out the boldest instruments in nature’s orchestra. The others which give the song of the forest depth and substance are stilled as the storm approaches and must be listened for more closely when analysis becomes possible once more.

From the balcony the clouds could be seen gathering over the canopy of the forest some while before the electrical discharges began to split the sky horizontally and vertically in the distance. As the storm’s darkness grew in its approaching, the noise of the thunder became more frequent. The birds were silent or had moved away. The reflective river had become troubled with ripples stirred up by an increasingly strong wind, and the cloud army massed and advanced. The new silence of the forest gave way to the sound of the sky’s onslaught against the earth.

The greyness of the rain when it came dimmed the view over the river so that it was no more than a distant faded curtain, its colours washed out. The rain’s force against the poussada’s roof and walls, its balcony and terrace, and over the trees and fields provided a percussive sound that drowned all but the thunder. It kicked up the dirt where it landed, splashing mud inches up the posts of the railings and walls of the buildings. It carved the beds of rivulets that dribbled red water towards the mighty river.

A tree fell over. Any noise that it made was obscured by the torrential rain. The dumb-show death of the banana tree seemed to be in slow motion, perhaps due to the strobe like effect that the wall of rain created. The thin topsoil had been washed off the shallow roots and, like a man who has had too much to drink, the tree fell. In short time its place would be taken by new growth, precarious and desperate to climb to the light.

The deluge lasted some hours. But then the deep greys yellowed over the forest and the strip of evening light grew broader as the darkest clouds passed overhead. The thunder and lightning are behind you temporally and geographically now. The smell of the watered forest symbolises in its freshness a new beginning as the day begins to draw to an end. The yellowed sky becomes redder and the night noises of the forest begin their song. The river reflects the oranges and crimsons on its re-mirrored surface and the shadows in the forest become the disguises for the wildlife of the night to protect themselves.

A pair of toucans flies overhead.