Gray Home

     Drip...drip...drip...

     The gentle rain falls around me, wispy mist of tears falling from the sky's eyes. The drops drift lightly, wishing to linger aloft, but destined to douse the thirsty earth. Mountains, dark and distant, tower over the edges of perception, the jagged black teeth of the pine forest gnashing defiantly at the slate sky. And beyond the rolling coastal range, the ocean, cold and murky, whispers whimsy to the shore, relaying tales of the depths, both delightful and dire. This is Oregon, home to those who revel in the rhythm of the rain. This is no place for the easily dismayed.

     Though the land is cowled in the brazen gray of the Oregon sky, and summer is but a brief reprieve from this pale pall, there is verdant life here, flourishing in the forests as well as the desolate desert wastes. Dualities of light and dark are displayed in the mingling of argent egrets and dusky herons as they wade in the fallow fields which bank the river that lost its name. The ancient forests, looming over the land from their mountain abodes, pass lore from old to new of matters beyond the ken of we fleeting beings. The lone coyote calls across the outstretched desert plain, his hollow haunting wail the knell of all small creatures who fail to heed. Amidst all, the rain continues, pitter-pat, setting the rhythm for all who wish to dance.

     And, indeed, the dance is joined by all, with revelry and levity in the cloud-damped grass. A fete of feeling, function, and form where by these sweet denizens offer up the accolades of heart and hearth so deserved by this cloistered land. Oregon, where umbrella is a word reserved for tourists and the uninitiated. Where the darkened skies hold close their earthly wards, shrouding all in the security of the Earth's own blanket. And, while we dance, we raise our faces, sky-clad, to greet the fragrant falling rain with that same warmth it fosters within us.

     It is in this land at the edge of the sea, when the crimson spears of the fading sun pierce through the iron sky, that essential magic meets reality, the gods of all mankind standing fast amidst the fusion of such a variegated landscape. And, as we wave farewell to each gray day, our praises flowing out over the Great Pacific, we carry upon our shoulders that constant companion of rain.

– Aldritek Arkadius