Raindrop and Lotus Leaf

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Poet: Chamnongsri L. Rutnin

Music by Dnu Huntrakul & Maithai Orchestra

Reader : Chamnongsri Rutnin &Thepsiri Sooksopa

RAINDROP AND LOTUS LEAF

Rain fell early in the night

leaving a large drop on a lotus leaf.

All through the night,

the raindrop trembled in the dim light of the stars.

When the nightbreeze stirred the leaf,

the raindrop rolled like a dark captive tear.

The lotus leaf felt the raindrop's fear.

It also felt the cool liquidity which

was like a touch of enchantment.

The leaf was larger than an alms bowl

though it had unfurled only two mornings ago.

Tonight's was its first rain - breathless, beautiful -

pouring down from the black shouting sky.

And now, cradled on its pearly surface was a fragile

remainder of that grand phenomenon of nature.

''Listen how the cicadas are chirping," said

the lotus leaf, doing his best to distract the raindrop

from her distress. "The leaves love to gossip with

the wind in the night. And bullfrogs make those

fat noises to scare silence away from the dark. Did you

hear them when you were high up there in the sky?"

Nightbreeze swept pass.

The lotus leaf stiffened his stem

to keep the raindrop from rolling off

his green edge and falling into the pond.

The raindrop listened to the sounds of Night.

They were new to her. In the clouds,

she heard only the whistling of the wind,

cracks of lightening and roars of thunder.

She listened to Earth's nocturnal sounds -

listening to each sound one by one

as if picking flowers of different sizes, shapes and colours,

scrutinizing them one at a time.

Then she let all the sounds flood over her.

This time it was like

bathing in a wealth of twelve-coloured garlands.

The lotus leaf felt his own happiness mingle

with the raindrop's growing joy.

The raindrop forgot her loneliness.

She shimmered as the black sky

grew pale, and blushed when she saw

dawn kiss the horizon.

Lotus flowers woke, their petals gradually

unfolded in movements of pink and white.

But the young lotus leaf began to worry.

He knew that Dawn was joyful and gentle,

Dusk was sad but kind; but the long Day

that linked the two was harsh and cruel.

To Day belonged the midday sun that seared

leaves and flowers, devouring their precious moisture.

Inexperienced as he was, he was sure that it would

do something terrible to the raindrop.

As the sun rose, the raindrop grew bright and

clear, sparkling as if she were a spirit of the nine gems.

The lotus leaf watched her growing more and more

beautiful as the sun rose higher and higher.

She drank his radiance, and refracted it in brilliant

colours as she danced on the windnudged lotus leaf.

The lotus leaf was sad for the raindrop was

conscious of nothing but the rising sun.

The sun rose higher: his rays grew hot and strong.

The raindrop sparkled brighter and brighter

as if a fire was lit inside. The more intense

her beauty grew, the smaller she became.

With anguish the young lotus leaf watched her

gradually diminishing into a tiny dot,

still sparkling like a minute diamond...

diminishing further into nothingness.

Time passed. The lotus leaf grew familiar with

wind, rain and sun. He had held many raindrops:

some evaporated in the hot sun,

others rolled and fell into the pond.

They were all bright and beautiful,

but for him none had the enchantment of the first.

Dawn and Dusk knew that he dreamed

of her return...an improbable dream.

"A chance in a billion," said the gentle Dawn

who felt for every leaf, flower and living creature:

Dusk nodded in gloomy agreement.

But the raindrop had always remembered

the lotus leaf who understood all her feelings.

When she fell once more in a night rain,

she chose to be cupped by him.

But the lotus leaf had grown old.

His greenness had lost its luster,

his edge had turned brown;

he was tattered by wind and insects.

In some places, his veins looked like lace.

The lotus leaf tried to cradle her as he once did,

but the wind did not understand.

It breezed across the pond and shook the leaf.

The raindrop fell through one of the many brown-edged holes,

and became one with the water beneath.

The lotus leaf aged, and died.

Its dead stem could no longer hold

the withered leaf above the water.

Stem and leaf decayed.

They, too, became one with the murky water

of the pond.

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